icky today

Today I feel icky, don't know why.. I think Rob is icky too, so maybe we have the same thing.

We had a decent weekend, I didn't do ANYTHING on Saturday besides laundry and putting around the house. Yesterday we did some shopping.

On Friday I sold beer at the Redskins game, along with some other folks from my rowing club- it was a fundraiser. It was kind of fun but painful after a while. Both physically and mentally. I got sick of walking up and down the aisles and having guys stare at me but not buy any beer. If you're going to stare at me, buy some beer and tip, OK??? I only sold 2 cases, and I got about $20 in tips- of course all the tips go to the club, but they made me feel good about myself. I think the reason I only sold 2 cases is that I took a couple of breaks to hang out at the lemonade stand. It wasn't as deathly hot as it was at the Kenny Chesny concert (the last time I sold beer), so it wasn't as tiring but at the same time people weren't thirsty so they weren't buying as much beer.

Some of those people were idiots. People would complain to ME about the prices, and they would try to bargain me down. Hello? If I let you pay $10 for 2, then I have to make up the extra $4- do ya think I want to do that? The beers are ridiculously overpriced ($7 each), but that's not my fault. I'm not even getting paid to do this, so leave me alone! Then when I was at the lemonade stand some asshole said he would "tip" us $5 for 2 lemonades. So he put $5 in the tip jar, but didn't actually want to pay for the lemonades. I was standing there with Veronica, who I had just met, and we both looked at each other like "WTF?" I said, "uh, sir, those lemonades are $5 EACH- if you want to tip us $5 that's fine, but you'll have to pay $10 for the lemonades." He looked all annoyed- but he gave us an extra $5 and took the lemonades. The thing about the lemonade stand is that it's harder to count how many we sell, and it's not like we actually keep track, so the margin is really high for the club. Unlike the beers, if we get less money for a couple no one is going to have to make up the difference out of their pocket. However, we are trying to make money for our team, and if the vending company found out that we sold some lemonade for less (or gave some away) we'd probably lose this fundraising gig, which generally earns about $1000 or more in a night. So it's in our best interests not to give discounts. Except to ourselves, and we are working hard!

There were definitely some cool things about selling beer. Some people were very friendly, and fun. The game itself had a lot more hoopla than at any other sporting event I've been to. The cheerleaders, the marching band, the fireworks. Maybe it was a big deal because it was pre-season, and they knew people weren't that excited about the game so they had to give them something extra. But I have a feeling that all football games are like that. I was also working the lower level of the stadium, so I had a good view of everything going on. There were times when I was just a few feet away from football players and cheerleaders. Not that I cared or knew who anyone was.

The crowd was much more diverse than I had expected. Whenever I watch football on TV I'm usually struck by how just about everyone is white. That was not the case on Friday, not by a long shot- I wonder if that's because when I watch football on TV it's usually somewhere in the midwest, whereas the demographic in DC is just different. There were also more little kids than I expected. These tickets are not cheap, but I guess some people are willing to spend money to indoctrinate their children into the football world. Like how my mom started taking me to Broadway shows when I was 4. But I bet those Broadway shows cost less than going to an NFL game- we always got on the half price ticket line, unless there was something my mother particularly wanted to see.