Coffeehouse Chronicles — Niners Win! Wait…What? Dangit.

Yesterday was Sunday—always a big day at the Coffeehouse. Sundays, the HB does her church thing and preps for fantasy football. And when I say preps, you gotta understand that the woman I married, just like my late mother-in-law, is a sports nut. She has a ritual where she calls her sister and verifies that their fantasy football teams —yes, plural, she has multiple, are set. She checks and rechecks her picks, who’s got the best match-up this Sunday, and then goes over the roster with a white glove and a fine-tooth comb.

Look, the HB inspects her teams as if she were R. Lee Emery looking over a Marine Corps recruit.

When she’s sure she’s got her teams in tip-top shape, she sets up her Sunday workspace. It’s usually in the kitchen; she has her tablet, a laptop, and the TV all set up. On the tablet, she looks at the apps that tabulate her fantasy scores; she glances at her computer to monitor her players’ heart rate and respiration. The TV has four games at a time going, where she checks real-time game activities. Through her phone, she rotates calling her sister and the several different defensive coaches that she has on speed dial in their respective coaching boxes at the stadiums.

I know not to bother her after I have dutifully placed her coffee mug quietly and without interrupting her flow next to her until after the night game has concluded, and I hear the ticking of the stopwatch, signaling to me that 60 Minutes has come on CBS.

This Sunday was a little different in the fact that the 49ers were in town to play the Rams. Now, trips to SoFi are only a few unusual occasions for Commander McCroc to take the time to shed his rubber footwear and don a pair of PF Flyers. He claims that when he wears them, he can jump higher and run faster. The 9er-Rams game tradition is a yearly sojourn that he and I do. It’s usually the Cmdr & me and Two Rays & the Commish. The Commish gets his ‘nick’ because he’s our fantasy league commissioner. Yes, I, too, am in a fantasy football league, not with the HB, but my own league.

I’m trying to get the Commish disbarred because he screwed me outta my team, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

The Commish was running late. That’s no surprise to me and the Cmdr. We know his smartwatch runs fifteen minutes slower than everyone else’s, and he’s going to be late to his own funeral, so we just roll with it. He was supposed to grab the vittles for our tailgate, but he asked us to do it. Because he’s late, as always.

The Cmdr & I look up the chicken spot via the Google and see that maybe we can stop before we get to the stadium to avoid anyone else with the same idea as us. When we pull up, we realize that we probably made a slight miscalculation. You see, we were at the corner of 111th & Avalon, and the only other two guys there appeared to know one another and liked each other a whole lot less than the Commish, and I do.

Picture this: Mutt & Jeff winos, both claim that the corner is theirs, and neither wants to concede their ownership in said property to the other.

Now, I am going to paraphrase the following and clean up the language for our more genteel audience, but those of you who lived in or worked in that general area will probably be able to read between the lines and imagine the vernacular used and the tone in which it was taken and given.

The taller wino says to the shorter wino, “Sir. You need to leave because this is my space and I don’t really care for you to be in it.”

The taller wino then showed his displeasure by taking three long strides toward the shorter wino and physically displaying his personal disdain for the more diminutive gentleman (he swung his arm from way back behind him, connecting with Short Dawg’s face).

The shorter wino, minorly dazed but undeterred, said, “There’s no need for that, my good sir. I’m just here for the coffee,” and made a hasty retreat into the establishment.

I had a feeling, based on the conversation I had overheard between these two gentlemen, that they had a previous relationship, and for an unknown reason, it was now fractured. Nonetheless, the chicken at this particular establishment wasn’t ready, and personally, I doubted it was Michellin-rated high enough for us to stick around for Round Two of whatever it was I’d just witnessed. I expressed to the Cmdr that maybe there was somewhere else we could be at that very moment. To my surprise, the Cmdr agreed, and we moved on to the next closest ghetto chicken joint.

Two Rays and I are part of the 9er Faithful, and the Commish and the Cmdr like to sport their Rams swag. Every time the 9ers come to town, it looks more like we’re in Santa Clara than Inglewood. There’s so much red in the stadium that you can hardly believe it’s not a home game for the San Fran. It’s all good-hearted banter, except between me & the Commish, because, well, he’s a little sensitive about the comments I make about him in the group text and the whole bloodless coup of the fantasy league thing. Yeah, big deal. Suck it up, Buttercup.

We ate, smoked a cigar, and I drank a couple of Pepsis. It was all good, and then we walked into the stadium.

Every time we’ve been to the game, Two Rays and I usually walk out laughing and joking about how we beat up on the “Lambs” except for that one playoff game, but that is ancient history. This time looked a lot like all those other times — until Stafford connected with Tutu Atwell late in the fourth on that bomb that ended in the Red Zone.

Dammit.

Lambs win.

Everyone knows how much I love my 9ers. The Jarhead texted me as we were walking out of the stadium. Mrs. Scubbles called to see if I was okay. Even Mrs. Scrubbles' brother, Robby (I just can’t call him Robert), texted to ensure the Cmdr had hidden all the sharp instruments from me.

It was a quiet ride back to Corona. I was pouting and couldn’t even look at the Cmdr’s poop-eating grin until we got to Kramer-Glassel.

Oh well.

Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

Bang-bang! 9er gang!

#coffeehousechronicles