Read Online Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster) by Dave Barry - Free Book Online Page B

if to say, “This ruffian has used his shoulder to injure me in the teeth!”
    It goes without saying that since an extremely flagrant foul was committed, the referee—this being soccer—did not call a foul on the play. However, upon further review of the video, the authorities booted Suárez from the tournament. This outraged the Uruguayans, who somehow made themselves believe that Suárez—who had clearly (for the
third time
) bitten an opponent in a game televised internationally to millions of viewers—had done nothing wrong, and was in fact the victim. So their fans were in a pissy mood, and it didn’t help that fans of opposing teams—the hated Colombians, for example—made great sport of the Suárez incident by wearing vampire teeth, zombie costumes, Hannibal Lecter–style anti-biting muzzles, etc.
    Anyway, Colombia won, 2–0, to the rapturous joy of our rooting section. Each time the Colombians scored, the entire team sprinted to a corner of the field and performed, in unison, a well-choreographed and highly entertaining salsa line dance. Also the Colombian fans chanted some uncomplimentary things about Uruguay. As the game wore on, there were several fights in the stands, all of them—according to the Colombians around us—started by Uruguayans.
    UNIVERSAL SPORTS FACT: A fight in the stands, no matter how pathetic, is always much more interesting to all of the spectators in the area than anything that is happening on the field.
    Sophie and I greatly enjoyed the Colombia–Uruguay and Germany–France games, but the most exciting game for us was the one between the United States and Belgium. It was a round of sixteen game, meaning the winner would advance to the quarterfinals and the loser would be eliminated from the World Cup. So this was our chance to root for our country in a meaningful game.
    I began my preparations several days in advance by going to a bar with some other Americans and trying to come up with reasons to hate the Belgians. My goal was to develop a Colombia/Uruguay-style grudge rivalry between us and them. This was not easy. Like most Americans, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Belgium, and thus there are many things I don’t know about it as a country, such as which specific continent it is located on. You don’t think of Belgians—at least
I
don’t think of Belgians—as being the kind of people who stir up strong passions in others. An expression you almost never hear is: “Those damn Belgians! They’re always doing X!” With X representing something unlikable.
    But we gave it our best shot, sitting around in the bar. Here are the anti-Belgian ammunition points we came up with:
The Belgians claim that they, not the French, invented French fries.
Get over it, Belgium! Nobody cares!
Also, the Belgians put mayonnaise on their French fries.
Actually, it might be the Dutch who do that. But the point is, it’s
wrong
.
The Belgians probably did invent Belgian waffles, but why, exactly, do they have to have their own waffles?
Our waffles aren’t good enough for them?
Hitler was Belgian.
The Belgians were behind 9/11.
    (We came up with those last two ammunition points after several beers, so they might not be 100 percent accurate.)
    We also tried to come up with some anti-Belgian chants to chant at the big game. The best we could do were these:
    Hey, Belgium!
    You can go to Hellgium!
    You say you invented French fries,
    And that’s just lies.
    After that the evening got a little murky.
    The USA–Belgium game was played in the northern Brazil city of Salvador. We flew there from Rio and took a taxi from the airport into the city on a modern eight-lane, or possibly ten-lane, or maybe even twelve-lane, expressway. You couldn’t tell how many lanes there were because the road had apparently just been resurfaced and no lane markings had been painted on it yet. It was just this vast,