Y'all Wear Dresses to Football Games?

But seriously, I wore a dress to a football game and lived to tell the tale. 

Not just any football game, but THE football game of the year (up until this point). 

In case you missed it last week, the man-friend is a Mississippi State alumni and desperately wanted to go see his Bulldogs (ranked 3rd last week) face Auburn (ranked 2nd last week) at his old college campus. He not only wanted to go see the game, but he wanted me to come down for the weekend, take a road trip and see the exciting game with him.

He surprised me with plane tickets (thank you airline miles) and asked that I took a day off of work to make the most of an impromptu quick weekend together.

I packed the only maroon thing I own - which just so happens to be a dress - and threw it in my suitcase along with all the usual things I take when I visit, like his favorite pajama pants I stole or the sweet stuffed animal people always swoon over when I travel. 

Saturday morning we woke up earlier than usual, but later than planned - and made the 3 hour trip south to Starkville, Mississippi (or Stark Vegas as I saw on a few T-shirts). 

The Tailgate

Call me silly, but I had no idea what tailgating actually was. 

I literally thought that you had to have a friend with a truck and could shotgun a Coors Light with the boys in order to hang, but that was far from the truth. There were tents side by side for as far as your eyes could see with the coolest set-ups you could imagine - from a catered spread to an entertainment set-up that's better than what I have in my home. Fairly classy for what I otherwise pictured in my head.

There were also college "kids" running wild that made me feel ancient with their beer drinking baby faces, but we won't go into that today.

The Game

It was "hot as Hades" all day so we had no need for the jackets we'd packed. Even with the 30% warning of rain in the forecast we were ready to take the chance for a little drizzle. By the time all 62,000 fans shuffled into the stadium, we'd walked at least 2 miles to our seats after getting lost along the way.

The game - unbelievable. For the first NCAA game I've ever been to it seems like the bar's been set pretty high. I was jumping out of my seat, booing, pretending my water bottle was a cowbell and celebrating the team's early success with my overly ecstatic boyfriend.

The Storm

This happens to be one of my favorite parts of the game to talk about because anyone can relate whether you're a football fan or not.

Remember how above I said there was a 30% chance of rain? Well it rained.

Oh no, it poured (and I won a bet).

A few tiny sprinkles kissed our skin as the rest of the stadium whipped out their stealth-mode ponchos and had protection from the inevitable downpour. My guy graciously let me borrow his hat to save my hair, but by the time two minutes had passed we were all drenched head to toe (except the poncho-wearing transformers) and I gave it back to him to throw all caution to the wind.

I stood there, arms open, laughing hysterically as I cheered on the team and wouldn't retreat to shelter like many of the fans. In all my life I've never been rained on that hard - not even in my four years of year-round long distance running in the Pacific NW.

After what seemed like 20 minutes of torrential beat-down it all stopped, but couldn't change the fact that I was now a drowned rat in a sleeveless fit & flare dress that was now clung to my rain soaked body.

Jokes on everyone, I'd actually packed a second outfit (and some towels) with fear that Tailgating would get out of hand. So after the game I had a dry option for the 3 hour night drive.

After the exciting and heart racing game play, my guy's team won decisively and is now ranked 1st in the nation after being unranked only four weeks ago. It was an awesome time and a worthwhile trip for us.

I look forward to making it to many more games with this guy, but looks like I'm going to have to find a few more game day dresses.