i only wear white when it rains

Thousands of sweating, domestic beer-drinking football fans turned out last night for the Tampa Bay Succaneers preseason home opener at Raymond James Stadium.

It also kicked off a series of conversations I will have with myself about why paying the equivalent of seven pairs of Manolo Blahniks for season tickets is a move anyone not suffering from febrile seizures should make. Of course one could argue that seeing the scrumptious Tom Brady (not dancing at Carnival) was worth the $7k alone.

But if you’re still pissed at Brady for leaving a pregnant Bridget for that Brazilian freak of nature, then perhaps the $35 food & beverage credit per game is enough to entice you to jump on the Succaneer Pirate Ship as a club level season ticket holder.

Yes, that’s right. Each club 1 season pass is loaded with enough money to get you a bag of popcorn assuming you’re willing to suffer through a line longer than Jerramy Stevens’ criminal record. But please, whatever you do, do not expect ice in your fountain Coke because “they haven’t brought that up yet,” or order anything off the grill menu because the organization literally just scraped five homeless people off Himes Ave. three minutes before kick-off to work the registers.

After a small nap and threats of firing the cannons directly into my skull, I am pleased to report I got my “dinner” minutes before halftime or when we had passed for a total of two yards. My hot pretzel was somewhere between salted and renal failure. So in addition to suggesting the Sucs employ people who are not completely confounded by requests of ice or carbonation in their soda, I’m also going to recommend they offer free kidney dialysis for anyone who gets a salted pretzel.

Although that $35 is a huge incentive that is likely to entice readers to jam the phones at One Suc Place in efforts to secure their own season tickets this year, please first consider the following:

1. Where you are sitting: Sure you can choose seats on the West (shady) side under cover and on the 50-yard line, but when someone whose gender is questionable removes its Birkenstock sandals to scratch the bottom of its hooves on the padded seat in front of her/him, it’s important to understand this is the equivalent of a 350-pound elderly woman armed with a tuna salad sandwich and love of medicated body powders squashing her jelly rolls and ham-hocks into the seat next to you on your 4-hourlong Southwest flight. Only it’s for the next seven flights.

2. Row exiting/entering etiquette: Please understand that when someone pays thousands of dollars to behold athletic mediocrity in 100-degree weather, they do not expect their neighbors to enter or exit through the rows penis facing. Everyone knows you enter and exit a row sideways ass facing. I literally almost had a penis jammed into my belly button last night thanks to an awkward encounter with seat #7, whose beer run met his blatant disregard for only the most basic unspoken rules of stadium seating.

3. Your attire and how it may annoy me: I find it extremely distracting when people attending sporting events are confused about what team they are supporting. I am a Gator fan, but do not feel the need to wear my Gators gear to a Sucs game. So why then last night did I spot in the first five minutes shirts for the Crimson Tide, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Cubs and the Brazil National Team, to name a few? If you’re going to a Sucs vs. Patriots game, you wear *Sucs or Patriots colors, gear or **neutral attire. Period. If you want to significantly increase my annoyance levels, wear unrelated items together such as a Tampa Bay Lightning visor and University of Miami shirt (um, I guess thanks to my buddy Nevin there are no fears of anyone sporting that).

4. You may be seated next to someone with olfactory superpowers: My Fairy Godmothers did not bestow upon me wishes for beauty, wit or musical talent. Instead they stood above my bassinet and granted me olfactories that could smell a mayonnaise jar that was just opened somewhere in a 3-story walk-up in Yonkers. So Row V, seat #2: your plate of pulled pork that sat festering on the concrete in this blistering Summer heat was the equivalent of someone eating a foot-long hotdog and burping in my face for two hours straight. Crimson Tide: I realize you may have been a little drunk and confused (the NCAA games are not actually played at Raymond James Stadium), but the 2-day old Clinique Happy perfume oozing from your pores combined with the spilled Bud Light soaking into your Forever 21 jorts, was enough to make me turn the cannons on myself again.

*Jerseys are allowed, but will increase your concentration of douchiness.
**Neutral attire is anything with the exception of Affliction, Tap Out or Ed Hardy (see above).