NFL action on island

Tropical Storm Maria was a complete tease. She was on a direct line for the USVI but passed north by about 50 miles. So the alleged day of reckoning turned out to be another sunny day in paradise.

Now what I am going to do with all the canned raviolis I bought? I'm sure I'll eat them eventually.

Moving on. So it's 12:50 p.m. on Sunday and the NFL is about to kick off its Week 1 action.

I was excited. My laptop was on the coffee table so I could monitor my fantasy teams, my stomach was full of cheesy eggs and I was still wearing my pajamas. It was shaping up to be a classic Sunday.

Then the satellite goes out.

I let out an angry yelp that was definitely rated R and frantically searched for answers. It wasn't because of a damaged signal or an approaching storm. Nope. The box literally turned itself out.

I looked at my watch. 12:57. Three minutes before kickoff? Sonofabitch.

I wasn't about to miss the opening game of the year but earlier in the week, I announced to my beautiful girlfriend that I was going to stay away from the bars this season. I wanted to preserve the girth of my cash roll, prevent the ensuing hangovers and spend some quality time with my lady while we shout at New York Giants together.

While I sat there and watched a TV screen full of static, my palms started to sweat. I considered jumping through the front window and running wind sprints until I passed out.

Brianna: "I can tell you're about to freak out. Why don't you just go to the bar?"

Sober NFL fan: "But I'm trying to save some money. We're paying for this satellite with the New York feed so we can watch all the Giants games. Did you hear that? I think I'm starting to hyperventilate."

Brianna: "The Giants game is on at 4. You didn't know that?"

My lady always knows what to say to clam me down. I kissed her on the forehead, put on my Giants jersey (no showering for this guy) and grabbed the dog leashes. She knew exactly where I was going.

The Dog Pub near downtown St. Thomas is a great spot. You can put your dogs in a large cage and let them duke it out while you sip suds at a nearby bar and watch football. The owner is a Giants fan. I knew this bar to be my one safe haven on a unpredictable football Sunday.

People always ask me if there is a big football fan base on the island and there definitely is. Despite the very lack of available sports bars, there are plenty of import fans from all across the States.

Check out my San Diego friends Chris and Maggie. Yes, that is their new baby already sporting Charger threads.

Hooter's (aka Hoots McGoots), Caribbean Saloon and Shipwreck Tavern are also wise selections when watching football on St. Thomas. The good people at Sib's open early for football but they are hardcore New England fans while just about any other drinking hole is a crapshoot.

The Giants ended up losing to the Redskins (for the first time since 2007) but I still had a great time at Dog Pub. Brianna's car got slammed into by some drunk leaving Shipwreck but that's a whole different story and I don't feel like typing anymore.

Maybe I'll swing by Dog Pub for one on my way home? Perhaps. Wouldn't you want to know? Good day to you, sir.

Island Irish power

As I recklessly rifled through four sets of NCAA brackets and sat at the Hooter's bar, an unusual couple came up to me for no reason at all.

It was the first day of the tourney and it was St. Patty's Day, which can be sort of a perfect storm for lunatics at the bar.

The lady had red hair and could not stop talking about how Irish she was -- "my father was this and that and my grandfather is buried at this random Irish graveyard that everyone is supposed to know" -- that kind of crap.

Her husband was pretty hilarious. He was decked out in Irish threads and even sported some St. Patty's Day pajama pants I was quite fond of (I later asked him if I could buy them and he declined my offer).

I got him to pose for a picture with Tiffany Reddick. When Reddick is not slinging suds at Hooter's, she's a USVI Olympic hopeful in boxing and she has a mean right overhand.

Anyways, I was trying to ignore them until they decided to buy me a shot of whiskey -- it's 12:15 p.m. and the games just tipped off mind you -- so I decided to halfway tilt my body in their direction and humor them briefly.

"Yeah, so I'm doing the Irish and black thing," the husband said to me.

"Oh yeah, how about we drink some Black and Tans," I respond. "That's a good Irish drink and I've got a decent beach complexion."

He agreed. But we were disappointed when I ordered. You would think that with such a vast array of adult beverages in stock, Hooter's would have more than enough Bass Ale to go around.

"Black and Tan ... what the hell is that?" the blond bimbo behind the bar said. "Is that like some Irish thing?"

"Indeed, it is," I said. "Bass Ale mixed with a stout."

"What's a stout?" she said back.

"Unbelievable," I muttered to myself, before I swiveled my bar stool back around to face my favorite interracial St. Patty's Day couple.

Instead of a Black and Tan, I bought them back a shot of whiskey and it looked like that would be enough for the redhead for a while. They told me they had been bar hopping since the early morning and apparently, were the only two members of a non-existent bar crawl that came through the area.

I watched the early games with limited interruption from the black Leprechaun, who gave me basket-by-basket updates of the games I had the most money on.

I paid my bill, said my good byes and went back into the office to finish up a few things. Later on, I was driving to a UVI basketball game and saw them stumbling around the waterfront in a drunken haze of some sort. Only on St. Patty's Day, I thought. Only on St. Thomas.

Hooter's redux

You tweeted about me so I'm going to blog about you, Carlos!

Woke up Wednesday morning to a text message from the friendly Mexican.

Carlos: "Where you want to meet?"
Patriotic American: "Shipwreck?"
Carlos: "I would say Hooter's so we can watch both games."
PA: "Are they even open now?"
Carlos: "For sure. I was there yesterday."

My good friend, Stephen, did not answer my immediate invitation call. Probably because he was hung over from last night's bender at Hooter's.

The night before, I was thinking about sleeping with the American flag wrapped around me but the girlfriend vetoed and after a second thought, it would have been disrespectful to Old Glory. So I hung her with pride and it was the first thing I saw when I woke up.

It was the final game for the U.S. in group play of the World Cup and we had to beat Algeria. I'll give you 2 dollars if you can point out where Algeria is located on a map. Africa? The Middle East? Fort Lauderdale?

I didn't shower. I didn't even brush my teeth. If the Mexican contingent on St. Thomas was going to gather at Hooter's for a soccer battle then I felt smelly America should be represented, too.

I walked into the bar at 9 a.m. to an interesting sight. Someone had draped an American flag banner across the entire bar and there were American party hats scattered across the tables. Were we supposed to wear these things? None of this was mentioned in Stephen's day-time Hooter's story. That sonsofbitch lied to me.

I sat down and looked around. Carlos was right. It was a great place to catch a game. The bar was wallpapered with flat-screen TVs and they were running a $2 beer special on Bud and Bud Light.

"Why, because those are supposed to be American beers or something?" I asked the bartender.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe just because we ordered too many and they're backed up in the walk-in cooler."

It was a rational thought but it also simmered my patriotic aspirations. I couldn't let this bartender dull my fire. So I did what every jackass does at a bar during a sports event.

"C'mon, boys! Let's do it!" I yelled for no particular reason while clapping.

No one reciprocated. The game hadn't even started yet.

Just then, Carlos walked in and grabbed a seat next to me. He ordered a bucket of beer -- remember, it's 9 a.m. -- and then we got started.

It was 90 and half minutes of tense, nerve-racking soccer. I couldn't eat. I could barely contain my frustrated profanity. Some yahoo behind me brought his entire family to the bar to watch the game. Check that, he brought his two young sons to Hooter's to learn the value of a decent American meal.

Those 3-Mile Island wings are killer. Carlos put back a dozen. In keeping with my America theme, I ordered a burger of course, 86 the french fries.

"Do you guys have any soup?" I asked the bartender.

She thought I was joking, laughed and scampered off to flirt with another patron.

After the U.S. victory, Carlos urged me to stay and watch the 2:30 p.m. game. It would determine who the Yanks would play in the next round. I had already planned to write a column about the American soccer bliss so...

"I guess it would be professional research," I said before Carlos high-fived me and ordered shots.

I left the bar at halftime of the second game and drove to work. I blasted the Rolling Stones the whole way and bobbed my head like only a stupid white boy could.

At a traffic light near my office, a St. Thomian (not sure if that is even a word) sat on a nearby bench and picked up the Mick Jagger tune. Now I have no idea if he even followed soccer or could figure out what had put this rowdy American into such a frenzy, but he started to bob his head too and then the light turned green.

I think it was the longest grin a human being has ever had while walking into an office.

The V.I. Hooter's Experience

Over the last few weeks, I've been hanging out with a new friend, Stephen. We work similar hours on island -- I'm a late-night sports writer and he told me his job is so top-secret that I needed security clearance just to buy him a beer.

Anyway, the kid is hilarious. He reminds me of The Pheonix, a fellow thru-hiker I met last summer while hiking the Appalachain Trail.

We've exchanged a few stories about living on St. Thomas while leaning against the bar at Sib's, another local establishment that attracts only the most elite drinkers.

Well, old Stephen was suffering from the Monday blues last week and decided he needed to get out of the office before he went postal.

After a quick drive, he arrived at Hooter's, which has only one beer on tap and serves All-U-Can-Eat wings (after 4 p.m.) on Mondays for 10 bucks.

The restaurant is strategically located across the street from Yacht Haven Grande, where all the big cruise ships dock for the day. For some odd reason, however, the restaurant never seems crowded ... even on Wing Night.

I've walked in there once or twice with my girlfriend (for protection) and aside from the boisterous "WELCOME TO HOOTER'S!" cheer you get from the bored waitresses, all you hear during the meal is crickets in the distance.

Now on this somber Monday, Stephen walked in, gave a quick glimpse at the talent and plopped his butt on a bar stool near the corner of a somewhat empty bar. The plan was to drink Miller Lite draft and eat hot wings until his head cleared. Or until he felt like going back to work. Whichever happened first.

To his surprise, the bartender was actually good looking. Check that, she was a blond bombshell and Stephen couldn't help but stare (he showed me pictures of her on his iPhone). In recent years, that was quite a rarity at Hooter's so he felt the day was about to turn.

After three beers and three plates of 3-Mile Island wings, the bar became steady as other locals jumped on the Wing Night special. The last horn blew from the last cruise boat so the rest of the island could take a collective sigh of relief.

Before Stephen knew it, he was yucking it up with the other bar folks. The same bar folks that said hello or nodded to every single server before sitting down. Like they owned the joint. The worst part, the bombshell said hello to each of them, too.

The dreaded regulars ... at a Hooter's?

Stephen started to sweat. What had he become, he asked himself. Did he want to be like the rest of the people around him? The type of person that would go to a Hooter's in the middle of a Monday afternoon for flat beer, over-rated wings and girls in orange short shorts flirting with patrons?

Stephen immediately stopped talking to the other schmucks, quickly paid his bill and burst out the door toward his car. The mundane Monday had turned into a nightmare.

The only thing he could think of now was to get back to work and pretend like his Hooter's trip never happened. He smoked a cigarette before he entered the office to disguise the booze on his breath and sat patiently at his desk. Was the mission worth it? Did he accomplish what he set out to do?

Then he got a text message. It was from me.

"Hey bud, let's do wing night at Hooter's tonight. Don't be a bastard. Meet me there at 7 p.m."

He texted back: "OK. Sounds good. I haven't been there in a while."