gotta ferment ‘em for game day, baby.

When the schedule comes out, our crew maps out who is going to host which game. We rotate it around each year.

That part stirs up plenty of controversy because someone each year just randomly shoots out the schedule, picks their preferred date, then it's a scramble for everyone else to jump in. If you don't see that email chain for like an hour, you get last pick. And then the horse trading ensues.

Anyway setting up the actual tailgate, one guy keeps all the gear in his garage (tents, tables, coolers, red Solo cups, etc.). For my turn I have taken today off to do shopping (mostly for cases of beer) and I picked up all the gear a couple weeks ago when I was near his house and it's been in my garage until today. I'll load up the car today/tonight with almost everything and be ready to head to the stadium around 6am tomorrow to make sure and get our regular spot in the parking area.

I got a buddy flying into town specifically for this game and specifically to help me set up the tailgate - it's a lot of work to set up the tents and whatnot for one person. I pick him up at the airport this evening, and he is gonna fly home either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning so I'll take him to the airport as needed.

When it's your turn, you pay for everything (food, beer, red Solo cups) as needed. We used to charge people $5 each for a keg cup but it has been many years since we've done that. At our tailgate, come one, come all, eat and drink whatever you like - it's all gratis.

I used to bring a small BBQ but those days are long gone, way too much to bother with. A lot of times what people will do these days is order food to be delivered OR pick something up and bring it with them (pizza, Chik Fil A, Dick's cheeseburgers...). That's gotten easier to do with later kickoff times, but a very tight timeline for tomorrow's game with 12:30 kickoff and a lot of places not even opening until 10 or 11am. So what we're doing for this tailgate is I'm gonna go buy a bunch of ingredients to make several different types of sandwiches. We are going to make them all at the tailgate site tomorrow morning after we get there, stake out our spot and set up our tents. I'll have a few different liquors and mixers, plus a ton of beer on ice.

Occasionally people in our group will cook (grill) food on site but it's a lot more to deal with logistically. Some people do it up WAY more than we do, not just with the food but also with generators, satellite TV, etc.

I could write another 10,000 words on this.

After the game, we pack up the stuff and drop it at the one guy's garage, and the next group picks it up for their turn.

my best friend had an extra ticket for me to the game but I passed

Hell yeah dick”s burgers

How big are these tents? Surely a man's man like Bam doesn't need someone to hold his hand while putting up a fuggin' tent.

Absolutely no way 10,000 more words could be said about that

Bammer tailgating so hard right now

Haha

Just finally coming off the hangover about now

If you drove out there with all the gear then got wasted, who drove it all back home?

DUI Am Mine

Come BAC

Hit My Tree

This drinking that I did took place at home after the game.

Those first two puns are solid though.

In My Tresponsible

Still drunk I see