Winning the Super Bowl should be like celebrating a significant birthday — it’s important to milk it for all you’ve got, and to make it last as long as possible. Who knows when we’ll get this excuse again? (Orioles 2013!!)
Step one: We hope you found some fellow Baltimoreans (or, say, a few thousand of them) to spontaneously hug and weep with last night. Downtown turned into a scream-y traffic jam with the red and blue of police car lights merging to form a purple glow over all the revelers. If you weren’t there (or somewhere equally crowded), find a time machine and go back to do it over.
Step two: Prepare yourself for the victory parade. It’s taking place tomorrow morning, so your advance prep should include seeming kind of sickly and worn-down today. The trick here will be making it clear that you’re not bleary-eyed from over-celebration last night, but instead that you “might be coming down with something.” Make sure to sound extra-raspy when you call in sick tomorrow morning, and then hustle down to City Hall where the parade begins at 10:45 a.m. Extra points: paint your face purple so if your boss sees you on TV, she won’t recognize you.
Step three: Get Brendon Ayanbadejo on Ellen already. The guy wants to do a goofy dance on daytime TV more than anything. He’s spent the past several years being an outspoken ally of the LGBT community, even when the locker room culture was not, shall we say, supportive. This year marriage equality passed by voter referendum in Maryland and Ayanbadejo got his Super Bowl ring. Get that guy on TV!
Step four: Hold on to some of this city-wide goodwill. Yesterday we were all wearing purple, smiling at strangers, and understanding that we had a common cause. That sense of fellow-feeling shouldn’t only happen around sports. If you’re ever feeling frustrated with Baltimore’s water main breaks/corrupt politicians/troubled public transit/whatever, just take a break to listen to how much emotion is in Ray Lewis’s voice when he says “Baltimore” in his post-game speech. We’re in this together — and “this” is way bigger than football.
