How to Championship

I think I've got it figured out, y'all.

I've seen the LSU Tigers play for 3 Natties* now, and I've done everything wrong and everything right that there is to do. And I'm here to share my wisdom.

*(I hear some of you saying that LSU played for a title after the 2011 season too. I remember the SEC title game that year, but I don't believe they played again after that.)

After the 2003 season, a friend of ours went out and bought a brand-new huge-ass TV. Unfortunately, he didn't bother to upgrade his cable plan to include the HD channels, and I didn't think that anyone was still watching low-def football. So I only got to see a giant blurry representation of the game. That's lesson number one. Make sure you know where you're watching.

Ready for the game to start on Monday night.

For the championship after the 2007 season, we went down to New Orleans to be in the mix. Not to go to the game -- just to be near the game. V was just a tiny little toddler, and we navigated the French Quarter with him on my shoulders.

After an hour or so, we were headed into Napolean House for a round of cocktails when a stranger ran up saying, "Man! You can't let your kid wear these!"

I set V down and saw that someone had given him a strand of penis beads. For those of you now acquainted with New Orleans, that's not some weird sex thing -- it's just a strand of beads that has plastic genitalia where the round things normally are. V had placed the beads over his head and worn them around while riding on my shoulders. It's anyone's guess as to how long he was up there like that. I would love to be able to read the minds of the few people who saw him and were aghast.

One Mardi Gras not too long after that, he was on my shoulders when a religious nutjob started yelling to me about being a sinner. "He's going to grow up to be a fornicator, if you don't get him out of New Orleans!" he shouted.

"I should hope so. Why wouldn't I want my grown son to have a happy sex life," I replied. This lead to much laughter from the poor saps who were just trying to watch their parade in sin-loving peace.

So maybe lesson two is that you shouldn't bring toddlers to the French Quarter. But to be honest, the penis beads were funny, so if you can avoid the zealots, I think the French Quater and toddlers mix just fine.

When the Saints made the Super Bowl, we headed back to the French Quarter again, this time without children. (In fact, it was V's birthday, but we just lied and told him that his birthday was the following weekend. Little kids believe anything.)

We pretty much had the championship day thing down by then. It was a nearly perfect day. We had good drinks. We ran into friends. We ended up with a good screen where we could watch the game. When the game was over, the whole bar spilled out into Burbon Street and I hugged and danced with strangers for quite a while. After that, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny was still with me, but our friends were hopeless lost in the huge crowd. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I went to Daisy Duke's for chili-cheese omelets, and even as I type this a decade later, my stomach turns when I think about it.

Rule number three: NEVER eat at Daisy Duke's.

Rule number four: Getting drunk is fine, but you want to be able to remember at least some of the plays in the second half when you wake up the next day.

That brings us to Monday. Shelly came down, and we got a good seat in front of a million sharp TVs two hours before game time. Drinks flowed, but in my case, it was mostly beer, and I remember every second of it. The shots at the end of the night were probably a bad idea, but I didn't hang over on Tuesday, so they're allowed.

Okay, so I got naked in the kitchen.

That part was fun. The part that wasn't was when Shelly sent me her pictures the next morning. I'm still really pretty, but I'm almost 50, have a big belly, and still have no ass at all. My naked is fun, but it's also funny looking.

Rule number five: make your friends put away their phones when you get naked.