Sports goes with food like touchdowns and extra points, goals and assists, ally-oops and dunks, baseball and spit, Jerry Sandusky and the fiery pits of hell (it’s cool, I’m not on the jury). From tailgate parties to entrees named after your favorite players (could I get the Warren Sac-n-Cheese Bankruptcy Burger with a side of Extreme-Talib Pizza-Shooters and felony fries, please?), a sporting event without a vast and diverse display of lip-smacking snackage is downright un-American. So, to celebrate the delightfully ironic tradition of watching world class athletes while stuffing your face with artery-clogging, ass-widening, liver-annihilating awesomeness, I proudly give you my dos and don’ts when joining the two for a get-together.
DO have enough ice. Let’s just knock this one out early. I know, pretty obvious and boring right out of the box, but I can’t emphasize this one enough. Nothing kills the afterglow of a lead-changing play in your favor than somebody slurring, “We’re out of ice,” transforming the drink-spilling high-fives and awkwardly almost-kissing chest-bumps into a frantic thumb-to-the-forehead race to see which sucker has to cart his ass to the Kwik-E-Mart. When in doubt, get more than you need. Ever heard anybody bitch about a watch party going tits-up because of too much ice? “Everything was fine until I got a dickens of an ice cream headache from my cold beverage. I just wanted to kill everybody.”
DON’T have food that requires utensils — finger foods only. If it needs a fork or, God forbid, a knife and fork to eat, you’re trying too hard. It’s not a wedding reception, Martha Stewart. Some people like to stand and watch the game, which leaves one hand for beer and one hand for grazing. Throw a fork in the mix and watch an otherwise educated adult look like Snooki taking the SAT.
DO have dips. A bag of chips on a coffeetable says you’re ready for a night alone getting crumbs between the couch cushions and wiping your hands off on your shirt… while sobbing uncontrollably. Put a sidecar of dip next to said chips and you’re the the Dos Equis guy ready to entertain. Any salsa, cheese, hummus, spinach and artichoke, onion, or that “world famous” queso and sausage dip your buddy yammers on about will turn any corn chip, potato chip, cracker or finger into a hot dripping shovel of finger-licking food porn. Money. (Shot.)
DON’T freak out on a double-dipper. Seriously, that Seinfeld episode turned us all into a bunch of germophobic pussies. Unless you hang out with lepers or that guy with a scorching case of anything rhyming with werpes, lighten the fuck up when somebody returns a chip for a second visit. If you’ve ever shared a soda, kissed someone on the lips, shaken hands, touched a doorknob, jumped in a pool, handled money, or lived on earth, you’ve ingested germs. Billions of them. We’re pretty resilient creatures if you stop fondling the hand sanitizer long enough to think about it. So you’re saying you’ll eat a burger from the bitter drive-thru grade-school drop-out who just furiously scratched himself, but your best friend needs to turn his Triscuit around?
DO have something dead. Nothing triggers your inner carnivore quite like the bloodlust of sport. So make sure the belly-stretching buffet is represented by at least one thing that had parents. Chicken wings, sliders, even meat on a toothpick will get ’er done. Oh! Instead of toothpicks? Get those super-cool colored mini-swords and fulfill two primal fixes in one by stabbing your prey before devouring its life force. Great for wicked pretend swordfights, too. “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Finally, DON’T serve anything healthy. You’re not Jared from Subway. If you can’t occasionally indulge at a party, stay home, stick a protein shake syringe in your butt cheek and blast your abs to “Let’s Get Physical.” You can’t yell, “Knock his dick in the dirt!” while munching on a carrot stick. Sport is entertainment and entertainment is escape. Treat yourself. Live a little. Sure, after the game is over it hurts when you sit, you sweat when you pee and you’re out of breath after a long sentence, but that’s why God gave us stretchy-pants. Live for today, diet tomorrow.
Enjoy (faaaaaaaaaaaaart!) Excuse me.
