Adults

Grand Rapids, Michigan is, surprisingly, known for more than merely being the home of the iamjef world headquarters. It also has a professional hockey team: the Grand Rapids Griffins.

Recently, I attended a game and had the good fortune of sitting two rows behind four people (listed from left to right): a rotund boy, a skinny boy, a skinny woman and a rotund woman. I don’t mean to denigrate the rotund nor the skinny, but this is the best way to distinguish these people, and such information will come in handy later. Also, the rotund boy was the son of the rotund woman, and the skinny boy was the son of the skinny woman.

The two boys, both approximately eight years old, were having a wonderful time, enjoying the game and pointing out everything to their moms. The moms, at first, appeared to merely be there as a treat for their kids. But at the first intermission, I realized the rotund mom is far too self-involved for that.

The Scoreboard

It was quiet in the arena after the intermission entertainment and before the second period. I was enjoying the brief lull. Then, the rotund mom shrieked. “That’s me! That’s me!”

The skinny family was missing from their seats, which was fortunate for them. The rotund mom was celebrating a birthday, and her name was on the scoreboard. I can see how kids might think such an event would be exciting. This was a 35-year-old woman (if the scoreboard was correct) who shrieked relentlessly, shouting at her son to look at the scoreboard, seemingly demanding accolades for something. I don’t know what, but something.

She pulled out her phone and took a picture of the scoreboard. At this point, she was merely amusing to me. Some crazy woman who is a little too zealous about nothing.

Soon after, the skinny family returned, and the rotund woman freaked out again. Paraphrasing: “Did you see? Did you see? I was on the scoreboard! Me! I was up there!”

The skinny mom said she saw. The rotund mom responded, “On the board? Or on Facebook?”

This stupid woman, whose Facebook page was probably already littered with birthday wishes from people who would never know it was her birthday if they hadn’t been notified by a machine, posted a photo of her name on a scoreboard.

The T-Shirt

One of the loudest reactions at a minor-league hockey game comes from the free dispersion of shirts (or free dispersion of anything). There are a number of chances to catch a shirt throughout the game, and excited kids and moronic adults make fools of themselves hoping to get a shirt with some sponsor’s logo on it.

One such shirt flew in the direction of the four people I’m wasting all these words writing about. More specifically, it flew directly at the skinny kid, who we remember was sitting directly to the right of the rotund kid and two seats to the left of the rotund mom.

The shirt landed in the skinny kid’s hands. That is, it hit his hands, but before he could put a full grip on it with his tiny eight-year-old fingers, the rotund woman’s meat hands blasted past the skinny woman, essentially shoving her out of the way, then ripped the shirt out of the kid’s hands. The kid looked up to his mom with a face of sadness and shock, looking for answers but receiving none. At the same time, the rotund woman shouted, “I got one! I got one!”

This idiotic moron was so excited for a free t-shirt, she ripped it out of the hands of the son of the other mom. The kid didn’t seem to mind too much, as he didn’t raise a stink. But he definitely didn’t know what was going on.

After the rotund woman’s self-congratulatory cheering subsided, she unrolled the shirt to see the size: children’s large. This quickly became the hilarious topic of discussion. “It won’t even fit me!” Uproarious laughter for all.

The shirt was way too small for the rotund woman and also too small for the skinny woman. So, it looked like the kid who should’ve had the shirt this whole time would finally get it. Instead, the rotund woman passed it down to the rotund boy and demanded he see if it would fit him. This completely changed his mood from good to horrendous, as I don’t think he appreciated having to say the shirt didn’t fit, which it didn’t.

After she embarrassed her own kid, she finally gave it to the skinny kid (the rightful owner of the shirt), but not without making fun of him for being so small. “Who else is it going to fit?” She then continued to berate the kid for being tiny. I hope it made her feel better about herself and having to give up that shirt.

The message was, “You don’t deserve this at all, but you’re a puny little runt, so you get it by default.”

Regardless, the skinny kid put the shirt on (the rotund woman demanded it), and posed for a picture taken by the rotund woman, who promptly posted that to Facebook to tell everyone about the shirt she “won” but generously gave to the kid.

Regret

The most unfortunate thing about this whole situation is I failed to take note of her full name (first name is Jo) when it was on the scoreboard. Had I done so, I could’ve not only found her on Facebook and posted the photos here as proof, but I also could’ve typed her name on a website, which she could then photograph and post to Facebook.

My apologies, Jo. If you ever read this, please take comfort in the fact I determined after the scoreboard incident if I happened to catch a puck, rather than hand it to a nearby child as an adult should, I was going to hand it to you.