Chicago – A bunch of caged, wild whodats acted restless, unruly and disorderly on the mid-morning airplane from Denver to Chicago.
A judge would have issued a restraining order against these creatures and ogres. A policeman would have Maced them. A priest would have tried to exorcise them. Nobody could calm them.
The whodats were barely restrained by the seat belts, but, for 2 1/2 hours, they kept emitting some screeching, shrieking, squealing primeval scream.
“WHODAT! WHODAT!”
From whence the gold-and-black beasts of murk get their name.
The flight attendants needed whips and bludgeons, not pretzels and soda. Passengers recoiled in fear and covered their heads with blankets. I thought the pilot would announce: “Is there a lion- tamer on board?” An elderly woman in the center seat next to me gripped her cross and prayed.
“Calm down, ma’am. Don’t worry,” I said. “Please forgive them. They’re only New Orleans Saints fans.
“They’re harmless. They don’t know how to act. They’ve never been here before.”
“WHODAT! WHODAT!,” they yelled. “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints!”
The whodats have crawled out of the swamps and emptied out of the Bourbon Street bars and taken their Cajun-fried and Louisiana hot-sauced mouths to the NFC championship game for the first time in modern and ancient history.
New Orleans Saints and NFC championship have been contradictory terms. So, let them have a good time. The whodats deserve it. Even ol’ Tom Benson, the rather disagreeable owner of the Saints.
Yes, your first question was the same as mine. What are fans from New Orleans doing on a flight from Denver to Chicago?
Bad travel agents?
Directionally challenged?
Mistaken that they were playing the Broncos today?
“Only way we could get from New Orleans to Chicago was through Denver,” said one whodat when I removed his muzzle. “It took us a long time to get here. What’s a few more hours? WHODAT!”
The flight attendants ran out of Bloody Mary mix in three minutes.
Michael Vick, according to the police report, tried to get through airport security in Miami with a bottle of water with a hidden compartment holding unusual granules.
The whodats, according to one passenger in 27F, were trying to board this plane with fruit jars full of some kind of brown liquid that looked like an old backwater Louisiana still.
I just bought a pair of those expensive headphones that block out every noise on an airplane.
Every noise, that is, except “WHODAT!”
I buried my head in a cap and a book, but that was a joke.
“Hoose gonna win de game?” a whodat asked me, apparently believing I had “professional prognosticator” written on my forehead.
You think I was about to say “Bears” sitting in the middle of frothing Saints fans?
“Saints, of course,” I said. “By three, 27-24, or something.”
“No,” snarled one whodat who wore a Saints jersey and had four strings of green Mardi Gras beads around his neck. “By 24 or 30.”
“You guys are greedy. Three points are plenty.”
This is the team that used to be Ain’ts, then Can’ts and Never Wills, then was the Vagabonds last year.
But Lose-eana has become Win-eana this season.
I went on, throwing the whodats morsels as you would toss steaks to a couple of Dobermans.
“You got your MVP-type quarterback in Drew Brees and your good running back in Deuce McAllister and your rookie of the year candidates in wide receiver Marques Colston and runner/receiver/returner Reggie Bush.
“But your defense will be the difference in this game. Your cornerbacks will play man-to-man, and the Saints will force Chicago quarterback Rex Grossman to make big plays. The Saints are going after him like peppers, onions, tomatoes, mustard, ketchup and a sesame seed bun on a Chicago-style hot dog, just as the Arizona Cardinals did when they whupped up on the Bears, and the Bears will try to utilize running backs Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson, and it ain’t (sorry) going to work. I see a couple of picks, a lot of hurries, a few sacks and a fumble or two.
“Everybody talks about the Chicago defense, but they’re missing defensive tackle Tommie Harris and safety Mike Brown.
“Plus, there’s the Brian Griese factor?”
“Who dat?” one female whodat said.
“The Bears backup.”
She gave me a string of beads. These are nice folks.
Monsters of the Midway? No way. The winner of this game will be the Whodats of N’awlins.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
