We’d never been to a Gator game before. We’d always scoffed at the notion — showing up with thousands of drunken, violent, mainly redneck hooligans. But, this was different.

I had free tickets from a generous friend. So, Reg and I headed toward the stadium. I’d seen the crowds before, but never this closely. It was a true mob scenario. Hours before kickoff, students, alumni, and crazed ticket scalpers descended on Ben Griffin-Hill stadium. All this for an exhibition game.

Reg forgot his ID. Scratch that. I’d forgotten to tell him he needed it. He’s that generally unethused about these games: he didn’t know. Soon enough, we’d know more than enough for both of us.

We pushed our way to the front of the melee. A sea of people squeezed through a caverous mouth of an entrance. Still, despite the size, all the ticket-takers, riot police involved wouldn’t have stopped this bullrush. My staff ID got me through — I’d been picked out of the crowd like the one unlucky chap in 900 that gets a cavity search at the airport. Reg stopped behind me — bewildered. I tried to hand my ID back. We were foiled.

Plan B: we called for back-up. My second ID was sitting at home and luckily, a friend was able to deliver. Thirty minutes later, we entered through another gate and made our way toward Law School ticket block. Our seats, predictably, were taken. Politely, we asked those in our seats to relocate. After much cajoling and prodding, they harumphed out of sight.

The Gators were thumping UCF. It wasn’t even remotely close. I looked over at Reg — he seemed to be loving it…soaking it in. There were high fives and songs all around. One couldn’t help, but imbibe some of the sunbaked joy.

Maybe we stuck out like sore thumbs: Reg in his casual dresswear, me and my general naive’ malaise.

A mid-twenty-something girl walked up behind us. She wedged her way tightly in-between us standing on the bleacher seat. Her arms wrapped around our waists. Her words were slurred; her eyes half shut. Still, she was cute. Her tight top revealed ample cleavage.

“Are you guys law students?” she slathered.

We shook our heads dimly.

“Good.” she replied with a flirtatious smirk.

She leaned between the two of us for a few plays. She screamed in-between plays and sang the fight song. Nobody around us seemed to notice. This behavior, apparently, was par for the course.

We tried to ignore her, but she had fight and still…a bit of drunken, ascerbic wit.

“You smell.” said Reggie.

She turned to him and said in a low voice, “I bet you’d be sweating too if I had my hand in your pants.”

Reg looked over at me with swollen amazement. A touchdown celebration erupted out on the field.

She took to rubbing our hair. I leaned away to the right — trying my whitey-mcnice midwestern polite denial.

Suddenly, she slammed her tongue into Reg’s mouth. She went at it for two minutes straight. Still, nobody noticed. I tried to avert my eyes, but eventually began to stare and giggle like a schoolgirl as though compensating for a lack in reaction from the crowd-at-large.

There were periodic breaks in the tonsil hockey in which she pulled out a pen and tattooed her number all over Reg’s arms. He, in turn, sloppily drizzled his number on her hand.

I leaned over during one such break and whispered. “We should go after the next score.” Reg nodded. She was liable to pass out at any moment.

UF sacked UCF in the endzone immediately: safey — two points. We headed out and made a B-line for the nearest bar.