A Tale of a Vuvuzela

The favorite instrument of the World Cup (and least favorite instrument of viewers of the World Cup) lead me to take a little trip down memory lane recently. Though, since I moved home, a lot of things take me on a trip down memory lane.

My junior year of high school I hung out with my friend Lisa and a bunch of dudes. Some of them were on the football team and we did the whole Friday night game thing. My friend Bryan, one of the few not on the football team (turns out he's insanely good at volleyball), was all about school spirit that year. He painted his face (and then smeared it on me to try and give me a Hitler mustache), wore crazy costumes, and got plenty of noisemakers.

One of these noisemakers, and no doubt the most infamous, was a blue vuvuzela. Of course, we didn't know that is what it was called at the time. We always referred to it as Bryan's horn. Bryan would blow it while we drove down the streets, he'd blow it in his backyard, and he blew it at school.

Well, at one football game, Bryan had the audacity to bring his horn and blow it at all the wrong times. It was so obnoxious that I refused to stand directly next to him. I thought it was funny the first five times or so. Then it got tedious. Turns out I was not the only who thought that. Bryan's horn blowing became so obnoxious for both teams that he was asked to stop multiple times. When he didn't, a technical was called on our Holy Family Tigers because of the "rowdy" fans. The next day, the incident was written about in the high school sports section of the Denver Post. Cue Bryan and his vuvuzela's 15 minutes.

I don't know what happened to Bryan's vuvuzela and his stunt was the talk of HoFam for a few weeks. I don't think anyone was truly mad at him. In hindsight, the incident is absolutely hilarious to me, especially with all the vuvuzela dissing lately.

So if there is a sudden rise in popularity of vuvzelas at Holy Family football games this fall, it's probably because of the World Cup. But remember, Bryan blew it first.