XL

Last friday, I got a phone call. Conviently, my phone was up in some ceiling tiles that I had been working on at the gym in Roseville. Also conviently, I had forgotten it was there. So as it rang, I frantically looked around amidst the front desk and various weight equipment trying to find it. Even after it had stopped ringing and only the "new voicemail" tone was going off, I was still searching for it. Finally, I decided to actually use my god-given sense of hearing and try and locate it that way. Now, while I have more then abused my body over the years, all of my senses are still up to snuff. Might be my animalistic side, who knows, but any time I actually take the trouble to "see" something without using my eyes, I am always pleasantly suprised at how well everything still works. Finding my phone was no exception. Within a couple rings, I was standing directly below the tile it was laying on, and with the next ring I knew that it was directly above me. So I got it, checked my new message. It was the union. They wanted me to work Sunday night and the rest of this week at Cobo Hall. So I called them back and said "sure, I'll take their money." And so began my weekend.

Today I drove down to Detroit. First time in about a year that I've been there. I had been told a year ago, when I was partying on the 50 yard line of Ford Field with some of the reps from CAT, that they planned on doing a major city clean up for the Super Bowl this year. I tucked it away in that place in my brain that stores all of the useless knowledge that goes in there and forgot about it. Forgot about it till today. The city had cleaned up a lot. It was nice. Traffic was bad, but its always bad. Especially when you have 2000+ people trying to leave Cobo Hall, and 2000+ workers trying to get in to tear down the Auto Show at the same time. The thing that confused me the most was the huges signs all over the place that simply stated "XL." Now I've got a little hometown spirit. Not a lot but a little. One was the side of a skyscraper that had turned the lights from the top 30 floors into a huge read and green XL. So as I'm seeing all these signs I'm thinking of that jeans commercial where all the people turn into huge giants and walk down the streets. Crazyness. So I turn my radio to 95.5, the local rap station. "Baby got back" by Sir Mix-a-lot was playing. I roll down my windows, crank up the volume, and just as Sir Mix-a-lot bellows out "I like big butts!", I yell out "WOHOO DETROIT XL! YOU'RE EXTRA LARGE NOW BITCHES!" This was while waiting in standstill traffic as hundreds of visitors to the Auto Show poured out its main enterence. I did get some looks. Most of them were confused. Which made me wonder if maybe XL didn't mean extra large. One however was accompanied by to fingers, held upright, one on each hand, extended towards me with a look that could only say "FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!" It was a large black woman who just happened to be the very definition of "baby got back." Her ass easily was 3-4 ft across. I turned down my stereo after that, and put on some Korn. You know, something a little more cracker flavored cuz whitey's shouldn't listen to rap when in Detroit, it causes too much chaos.

On my was home, I saw a much smaller sign that said "Super Bowl XL, 40 years of football." So thats what the XL was for. Roman numerals. Never crossed my mind.