Balls, Massages and Pink Shirts

I promise you don’t have to like or even care about sports to get some level of humor out of this post.

But for those of you who don’t know, I am a humungous ridiculous sports fan. Specifically, baseball and football. Specifically, the Red Sox and Patriots.

I am not so much a fan of basketball. But my poor Boston transplant roommate is. Living in Minnesota is tough if you’re a sports fan, for so many reasons. Crappy fans, crappier stadiums, even crappier teams. It’s tough to get excited about it. It’s one of the things I miss most about Boston. And this is a point on which we often have joint commiseration sessions.

So her solution to our football depression this year was to get tickets to Girls’ Night Out at the Timberwolves basketball game.

Let me just stop here for two seconds. Scott is a basketball fan, the one sport he actually likes, though doesn’t follow religiously. While he was laid off he got offered a very cheap package of tickets if he went by himself. Which he did. After his first game, he got a call from a dude named Tony who proceeded to offer him a free suite for Scott and some of his friends. Their tickets would be free. Couple things: 1. Scott had spent practically NOTHING on his package, so he was not some high roller; 2. He couldn’t get four guys to agree to go…with a FREE ticket…to a FREE suite. That’s how bad they are. Tony stalked Scott all season, offering him upgrades and free drinks…I think maybe at one point it was possible Scott was going to coach the team, I can’t be sure.

So anyway, there are a lot of these gimmick nights. On Guys’ Night Out, the guys get to meet the cheerleaders and have their calendars signed.

No, Girls’ Night did not involve meeting the players. Or the mascot. Or even the cheerleaders for that matter.

But it did include free parking, two free drinks (they made a point to say including wine), and a free massage.

I balked at going at first. I said to her: “isn’t this a little pink hattish?”

For those of you not familiar, the pink hat girls are the ones who attend games in their full pink jerseys and hats. Typically (yes, I know there are exceptions and so please don’t barrage me with hate mail), these girls are the ones in the really good seats who text through the entire game while their boyfriends try to cajole them into paying attention. They’ve taken hours to achieve this “sporty casual” look that involves more makeup than Bette Davis in What Happened to Baby Jane.

I’m cool that these girls exist. I am not cool with them pretending to be fans.

I was concerned of hitting this level of poseur.

Anyway, eventually I agreed to go on the condition that we not wear anything pink and an agreement that if either of us drank anything but beer, the other could publicly humiliate them in some painful way.

Luckily it didn’t come to that. We figured out that between the parking and the beer, we had already more than paid for our tickets. We hadn’t even ventured into the massage.

So the massage area was…interesting. I kind of pictured a suite, or even a little tent like they have at marathons. Not so much. It was 5 massage chairs lined up across from a beer stand, a stone’s throw from the condiment shelves. Ah, yes, relaxing.

Even more relaxing? You get to sit so you’re ass is exposed for all the dudes buying drinks behind you.

After your five minutes of exposure, you get a gift card, a discount card, and some free samples. Seriously, the Wolves were paying US to be there at this point.

I remember very little about the game. I remember the pretzels being really good. And a plethora of pink shirts with a lot of discussion about how good the players’ butts looked. In baggy shorts?

Anyway, I will think of this day fondly now that I am booking my massage with my coupon and gift card, courtesy of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Hopefully in an actual room and not on the half-court line of the next game.