Easy on the coleslaw and the spandex...

I need a yurt and I need one bad. Preferably with air conditioning. I always wanted to be the girl who tosses her locks and casually pins up her hair and says over and over, “I’m fine.  Really.  It’s not that hot! Do you think it’s hot?” Of course it’s hot. It’s hotter than the hinges of Hades without a breath of air. It’s Cup Match, damn it. It will be hot, it will be humid and the only cool breeze during the holiday will be provided by Bacardi. Plan to suffer.

While you’re at it, plan to keep hydrated but not too much or you’ll be doing the midnight shuffle down to the port-o-john at three in the morning. Oh, you’ll think it’s not so bad the first time but after a long day of unrelenting heat baking the roof of your “convenience station” you’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t just check in to a hotel. It will be nasty.

Salads. Plan to eat lots of coleslaw with every conceivable combination that your aunt or best friend insists on bringing along. They don’t get it.  Nobody eats cabbage on a good day. There’s a limit to how much mayonnaise even a Bermudian can withstand after the slaw has been sitting longer than 10 minutes. Mayonnaise is a condiment not a drink. You’ll be served Aloha slaw, Texas slaw, my grandmother’s slaw, Kale slaw (Don’t whatever you do, try this!) and spicy slaw. It will all taste the same. Definition of coleslaw: watery gruel for the masses.

What are you wearing?  Some women have spent more time worrying about what they will be wearing during Cup Match than the day they get married.  Planning begins weeks in advance and is more akin to a military offensive than a day at a cricket field.  Spandex will be featured prominently which is why there will be several ambulances waiting on the field. Looking fashionable comes at a cost and too much spandex can cause overheating, which causes chaffing, which causes heat stroke or something like that. 

Sometimes a girl really can get overwhelmed by Cup Match, particularly so if across the field someone is spotted wearing the same outfit. Then there really is only one option:  faint and be taken away as soon as possible to avoid being seen by VSB or ZBM or heaven forbid, one of the columnists from this newspaper. Can you imagine the damage if Larry Burchall got one of his graphs out and plotted your ‘fashion no-nos’ from years of Cup Match attendance? Brutal.

Want to see a politician sweat over nothing? Go to Cup Match. This is why I could never be an MP or Premier of Bermuda.  I would wilt in about five minutes. Which gives me an idea. Maybe the heat should be turned up as high as possible during sessions in Parliament and members would be so busy fanning themselves they would forget to speak!

Happy Cup Match and stay safe. Your kids depend on you and someday, with any luck you’ll be eating their coleslaw.