Okay, so Phi Mu Alpha played this flag football game against another team on some sort of intramural system which I don't quite understand. They had the psychological advantage over me from the get-go because the players were 1) grad students from VIMS who 2) seemed to be on some sort of covert for-combat-use-only drug like the one in the Spider-Man movie. They communicated mainly by screaming and smashing into other in a painful-looking manner. (The after-game handslapping alone gave me several fractures.)
Here is a summary of football for people, like me, who remain happily ignorant of the sport: There are two phases, defense and offense. After four downs in which one team (the one on offense) tries to score, the ball goes to the other team. In between these two periods there is a time out to pull bodies and body parts off the field and to round up the deserters, i.e., the inexperienced new players stupid enough to actually watch the action.
I'm thinking about making a short film based on my experiences. Suggestions for titles are welcome: too bad the "Thin Red Line" is already taken.
*BWEEETT* kickoff *BWEEEETT* UNH! SMASH! CRUNCH! *BWEEET* "DEFENSE!" HUSTLE HUSTLE SMASH BATTER PUSH OOOF! *BWEETTT* "OFFENSE!" HUSTLE HUSTLE BREAK TEAR RIP SMASH SHATTER *machine gun fire* cry of "MEDIC!" *video footage of: the Elves and Orcs rushing towards each other on the slope of Mount Doom, atomic tests in the desert, bombs dropping from the bay of a B-17, the launching of the Space Shuttle...all with Beethoven's "Ninth" playing in the background*
Cut to: the haggard figure of a broken college student stumbling off the field. He looks up into the face of a referee.
Referee: Kid, this is a football. Take it.
*kid reaches for ball hesitantly, then shies back into a cowering position, dry heaving*
Camera pans down to reveal ref's cloven hooves and pointed tail. Fade to black.