Beavis and Butthead – The Ultimate Giants Fans

I went to the Giants game this past Wednesday and they won! My friends, Susan and Corinna and I are SUCH good luck! (The last game we attended was Timmy’s second no-hitter!) However, that’s not the point of this blog.

This is the point. My friend, Susan, and I are very clear that we were sitting directly behind Beavis and Butthead at the Giants game Wednesday, at least for a while. All right, in actuality, the fellows in front of us weren’t really those two, memorable, animated characters, but they just as well could have been. It was their demeanor. Simply being in such close proximity to such colorful chaps, catapulted us back a few years!

We arrived at AT&T Park just before noon, found our seats and sat behind two guys who were chatting, each already with an open, $10.00 plus cup of beer in hand. As folks began filling the seats, Susan and I noticed “Beavis” squirming a bit. “Butthead” just quietly looked around, sucking down his brew. In time, however, he also became a bit restless. “Ah,” I thought. “Campers.”

As the game began, more people filed into the seats below us and into the aisle just in front. The two “characters” departed but their seats remained empty. “Thank goodness!” I exclaimed happily. I could see the field for once. My joy was short lived however.

“They’re back,” Susan whispered, watching the men inch past a young couple to the third and fourth seats in the row. “Beer two,” she added.

“Ugh. I can’t see through this dude!” I whined.

He was wide, very wide with wild, unruly hair and a dusty, baseball cap that added inches to his height. Beside him, his partner seemed quite diminutive, but he was noticeable too, a dirty cap pushed down over a mop of curly hair that had been pulled back loosely into a frizzy ponytail.

Almost as soon as he had settled in, the big guy hopped up and left again. Urination time, I would guess. He returned and at once nervously perused the fans around him. Mr. Ponytail exited next, and after what I assume was HIS bathroom break, returned with beer three for each of them. The poor couple at the end of the aisle looked like jumping jacks, standing and sitting time and again to accommodate the two.

Three innings into the game, a couple moved in to the seats next to me. I smiled. The woman smiled, and then she rolled her eyes at the hulk in front of me. “Campers, I think,” I told her and as if on cue they departed for good.

No, they didn’t. Not quite. In no time at all, they selected new seats at the other end of “their” aisle. Armed with a fourth brew, they settled in. “What gives them the right?” I asked Susan.

“I’m not sure it would be worth it,” she replied, “worrying about getting caught the whole game. They probably had nosebleed seats, probably always do, and just rotate around the stadium looking for an empty spot to park.”   

We glanced their way time and again throughout the rest of the game. Beers five, six, and seven were consumed before the eighth inning began and in time they were sitting numbly amid the screaming fans around them.

“I wonder where they live,” Susan queried.

“Good question. Do you think they live in San Francisco, in an apartment, in a shelter, in the street? Interesting to speculate. Hope they aren’t driving. They’ve each spent about a hundred bucks on beer.”

“They’d have been better off on a back deck with a case of brews and a television,” Susan said, adding, “Hope they find their way out of the stadium and that ‘home’ isn’t too far. They’ll be weaving all the way.”

When the game ended, our speculation did as well, but the memory of “Beavis and Butthead” has wandered in and out of my thoughts for two days. I suppose I was raised with a different sense of right and wrong because I’m not sure what set of values motivates such folks. I would have looked so guilty I’d have been “caught” the first inning. In the grand scheme of things, it’s only a “little thing” the men did though, and perhaps I am quite naïve to make a judgment about those two because when I look at the world as a whole, their behavior was actually quite innocent. It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess, and at least their shenanigans were an interesting subset of entertainment for an afternoon.