College football—you either love it or you hate it. If you go to a Big Ten school, chances are you probably love it. Most kids in fact get overly hyped about repping their school’s football team and wear their team jersey every day. You’d think the jersey would eventually start to smell (trust me it does) but no one really cares. Repping your school is the number one priority. For me, not so much.
I’d be willing to drop all my money on a Shawn Mendes concert any day of the week, but a football game? No way.
I’d rather save my money and buy myself 326 pints of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream. Yeah that’s right. Shawn Mendes and 326 pints of ice cream mean more to me than any football team. So, you can imagine how I felt when my roommate asked me if I was going to the big football game on Saturday. The obvious answer was no as I didn’t spend a single dime on tickets. But that didn’t stop her from convincing me to go to the game.
Now my roommate knows I’m not the biggest football fan ever so I thought it was kind of a weird question. I responded by saying I had too much homework and had no way of getting in. She sat up in her bed and said, “Girl, you need to take a break from your homework and have a little bit of fun. Come to the game with me please.” She sounded so enthusiastic that if I had said no I was afraid I would totally crush her spirits. So, what did I do? I of course said yes. Deciding to go to the game was the easy part, getting in was not.
After finally managing to drag ourselves out of bed, we slowly got ready for the game. Being the lifesaver that she is, my roommate let me borrow one of her football jerseys and then proceeded to dump a pound of sparkly stuff on my face explaining that that’s just the stuff girls wear to football games. After my shower made of sparkles, we headed to the game.
As we walked to the game my roommate got a text from a friend who had already gotten into the stadium. I knew it must’ve been bad because she turned to me with that I-know-you’re-going-to-hate-me smile and said, “Don’t freak out, but they’re checking student tickets. Looks like we’ll just have to sneak you in.” Now I wouldn’t consider myself a good-y two shoes but I’m also not the type of person who does risky things like sneaking into a college football game. That’s just not me.
The whole time I thought they wouldn’t be checking tickets, so I didn’t feel that terrified as I wouldn’t have to pretend to have a ticket in the first place. But sneaking into a game where security scanned tickets made me incredibly nervous. I told her I didn’t think I could do it. But we were already half way to the stadium and turning back at this point would’ve been a lost cause. So, I decided to suck it up and put on my big girl pants—I was sure going to need them if I wanted to get into the game without shedding a tear or peeing my pants.
Five minutes later we stood at the gates. The time had come—my make it or break it moment. I had the screenshot of my roommate’s ticket on my phone with my brightness turned all the way down. Standing in line I thought I would start hyperventilating and pass out . It got even worse as I watched every single person in line go through the gates. And then came my turn.
I walked up to the lady scanning the tickets with a smile on my face, trying to not to look as guilty as I felt. The time it took for her to take the scanning machine out of her pocket and bring it to my phone screen took forever, almost like I was living in slow motion. I held my breath as she pressed the button. It didn’t work so she hit the little machine and tried again. It didn’t work, again. This is where I imagined her radioing the police officers demanding that they escort me to prison.
But you know what she did? She looked me right in the eyes and said, “Just go on in.”. I tried to keep my cool but the minute I set foot in the stadium I ran up to my roommate and started jumping up and down screaming at the top of my lungs, “I got in!” Probably not the smartest move, but I just couldn’t believe I’d actually done it. I snuck into a college football game without getting arrested. Now I wouldn’t necessarily condone this type of behavior, but I did it. And I’m glad I did it. Point one for me. Point zero for college.
