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By now, everyone has seen the videos flying around the internet of mobs knocking over awnings and a man-eating horse shit on the street. My story isn’t from the inside of the festivities, but rather is the struggle of trying to get out of Philadelphia before the whole city burned down.
Eagles fan just ate horse 💩 and that's my cue to log off Twitter #Philadelphia #SuperBowl party foulpic.twitter.com/zeWA3ywxsh
— IB (@incarceratedbob) February 5, 2018
When I got the invitation from a friend to watch the Superbowl at his apartment in downtown Philadelphia, I was under the impression we would be watching the Eagles take a hard L. I thought it would be fun to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a few months, and shot my “yes” RSVP off in the group chat.
You all know how the game went, so I don’t feel the need to make the attempt to recap the whole thing. I also wouldn’t even know how to be perfectly honest. Sunday night was the first time I learned that a “longstop” isn’t a position, and that the quarterback is allowed to score a touchdown. I digress. Back to the real point.
As soon as the clock had run out and the game ended with an underdog victory, my boyfriend and I gave each other the look. We didn’t need any verbal communication since we were both thinking the same thing: we need to get the hell out of this city ASAP.
While most of the people in the room had preemptively taken off the next day, or arranged to work from home, my boyfriend and I both had to be physically in the office early in the a.m. and had an almost two-hour drive for home.
We made hasty goodbyes to our still celebrating friends and rushed to exit the building. As we emerged on the sidewalk, people were already streaming by. There was screaming and chanting. A fat man in an all green get up tried to pick me up in a bear hug. From a block down, you could hear glass shattering. The game hadn’t been over for all of five minutes and it was already chaos.
By this point I was pissed. I don’t care about football, but I absolutely love feeding off other people’s excitement. At that moment, I was tempted to just call out sick and join the growing mob of people headed towards Broad Street. I took the responsible route though. Instead of shot gunning beer with strangers, I joined my boyfriend in sprinting up the parking garage steps.
We made it out of the garage in record time, but the real challenge was about to begin. People were everywhere, flooding the streets with no awareness of their surroundings. Punches were thrown at the outside of our car, someone tried to climb onto the hood.
I watched from the passenger side window as a man scaled a highway overpass fence with a 40 in his hand. I was convinced we were about to watch someone die falling into incoming traffic. However, once he balanced at the top of the fence, he led an Eagles chant before half climbing, half falling backwards onto the sidewalk.
We moved at 5 mph past couples making out, men taking their shirts off, and someone throwing up in a bush. I felt like we were viewing a simulation of society’s collapse post-apocalypse.
The GPS kept losing connection and Siri would announce she was rerouting. My boyfriend, understandably stressed, would ask where to turn and I would panic and yell “I don’t know!” Would we die under the sullen gaze of Benjamin Franklin’s statue? Would the crowd flip our car with us still in it?
It ended up taking 45 minutes to go 4 miles towards the highway on-ramp. I had changed my mind during the most traumatic car ride of my life. I no longer was upset about missing the celebration but instead was thinking about how nice my bed would feel, and how quickly I would be trampled in an actual riot.
If I could go back and skip the trip would I? No. It was an experience I won’t forget, and it felt good to be part of something so monumental. My only regret from the evening was my excessive buffalo chicken dip and pigs in a blanket consumption during the game. Congrats Eagles, and best wishes to my heart/artery health, the real losers of the evening..
Image via Checubus / Shutterstock.com
Respond
Kell
future soccer mom of America (AKA I drive a Volvo.) Miracle is my favorite movie and it should be yours too.
@backpackfanclub
@instagram
Still can’t comprehend what part about your city winning a super bowl makes you think “I’m gonna eat some horse shit”
When you’re that drunk/on drugs, you probably don’t think.
Idk, man. I’ve drank and done a good amount of drugs and I’ve thunk my best thoughts during that time and never ate feces of any kind or rooted for the city of Philadelphia in anything besides Always Sunny
Yea, but have you done that in Philly with the Eagles playing? There’s something in the air there that makes people go crazy. Kinda like whatever makes dead people turn into zombies in The Walking Dead.
I mean I’ve been “are you trying to pee on my leg?” drunk and didn’t think poop would be tasty
This is true. I tried to rationalize the behavior of Eagles fans, but should’ve known better. I own my mistake.
Wow, you missed the experience of a lifetime actually. I legitimately don’t know if I’ll ever get to experience being apart of that kind of energy from an entire city again in my life. Sometimes you just gotta live.
Leaving immediately disqualifies you as being “part of something monumental.”
Eh you have to weigh consequences vs. experiences sometimes. When OSU beat Mariota an friends for the title a lot of fellow dolphins got in trouble after for getting caught on social media throwing back tear gas containers/trespassing in the shoe etc. and luckily our boss was understanding otherwise their careers could have easily been torpedoed.
Life is short, man. Even your boss understood this.
Legitimately one of the greatest moments of my life. That win meant so much more to the city than the Phillies ’08 title did and the fact that it was such a long shot title from week one made it all the more special.
The only downside was a video of me crying tears of joy as the game ended going semi-viral and subsequently all my friends calling me a huge pussy.
Can we get a link?
Absolutely not. I spent all day Monday with the uber-scaries that a legit site might share/RT it and I think I’m finally in the clear.
I am so insanely jealous of everyone who got to experience that. Work will always be there but championships are rare
Had zero issues getting from the couch to the kitchen, a few stairs maybe.
If you didn’t know, now you know – THERE ARE NO RULES IN PHILLY!!
In two years, you won’t be able to remember what you “had” to be at work for on Monday morning.
The real question here is will the Crisco Cops be back in action for the parade on Thursday? Stay tuned.
No such thing as too much buffalo chicken dip and pigs in a blanket