The World's Common Tater

I think I’ve asked this question before. That likely means that people are not getting dumber, I’m just getting less tolerant of people’s antics as I get older. The more people who are around, the more likely I am to get annoyed. Here are some Ravens game examples of things that made me more irritable than they should. The trains actually ran on time this game so we had plenty of time. Had we been late, I would have likely exploded.

We take the light rail into the city for the games. That means a full train of people is dropped off and merged with other people who are walking toward the stadium. Every single game there are people slowing things down because they are staring at their phones as they walk. This is stupid in most cases, but even more so when you are in the middle of a crowd. Put the phone down and walk!

The security line to get in was not too bad when we arrived Sometimes the line is very long and the reason why we miss the player introductions. The line is slower because of people like the guy Sunday night who delayed things at the metal detector. He was wearing a Let’s Go Brandon sweatshirt. That was barely clever when it started. Even less so now. He was trying to walk through the metal detector with a can of beer in his pocket. He thought it was hilarious when he got caught and handed the beer to the friend he was with as he was heading to the metal detector. He thought that was hilarious as well and was too busy being pleased with himself to listen to the security guy tell him to go through again.

At the end of the security line, there used to be two scanners to scan your ticket and multiple people with handheld scanners to get people through. Now there is one scanner and one person with a handled scanner. The scanners are not that good and everyone had issues getting the tickets to scan properly. I was no exception. My first ticket scanned fine. My second one wouldn’t I asked the guy there if he could just scan it. He would not. The guy who was supposed to be helping people when they had issues barely mumbled instructions to try again on the scanner. It finally worked, but everyone having issues and this guy’s refusal to help create a major bottleneck.

The Ravens give a voucher for a free soda or water for designated drivers. I drive myself home from the train station, so I stop and get one and then get a soda for the game. Last game they had a nice system with stanchions funneling everyone into one line so each cashier took the real next person in line and there was no worry about ending up stuck in the slow line. That was gone this week and you had to roll the dice and pick a register line. The line I picked should have been fast. It wasn’t because three guys in front spilled their drink or something on the counter, took forever ordering because they wouldn’t stop talking, and ground the line to a halt.

In the stands everything was fine. Once I’m in my seat I generally don’t have any issues. I did witness some stupidity though. The rows in front of us have different people in them every week. I guess they are either corporate seats or the people who owned the seats gave them up and the team is selling them online. In this game, we got a guy who decided no one should ever stand up. The team encourages people to stand and make noise on third down. The first Browns third down the people in front of him who attend every game stood up to cheer. He tapped them and I could tell he was telling them to sit down because they were blocking his view. I could tell they were explaining third down to him. The next third down he took a picture of them. Soon after guest services arrived. He had texted the number to report bad behavior to complain about people standing and cheering at a football game. Of course, security did nothing but explain how things work and the guy eventually moved a few seats down.

We still have the usual ridiculousness at the train station after the game. There is a very long platform, but everyone stops at the very beginning of the platform making it hard for others to get to the platform to take the train. We squeeze through the back for the crowd if possible to get to the end of the platform. Most people just stop and add to the problem.

I should learn to just laugh at all of this, but it drives me crazy and makes me irritable.