So - instead of doing my usual Thursday night "ride Cass, battle traffic, get home, then collapse on couch and watch girly TV" deal, I spent much of it on the Metro and standing outside in 40 degree weather. And why? Wellll, I met about 98% of the DC United Team last night, which was way cool and totally worth the hour-plus I stood in line for it. If you have the opportunity to meet your local MLS team, I highly recommend it - one, the players are incredibly kind and grateful to their fans (could be the lack of $5 million contracts that promote this), and two, they're effing HOT. And nice. Did I mention hot?

Despite DCU not making it to the MLS Cup (despite a gallant effort, they lost 3-2 on aggregate from Chicago Fire), there were a ton of people there. I'd say the median age of the fans there was, oh, 7, and I stuck out like a sore thumb… I was afraid of being mistaken for someone's teenage daughter, or worse, the mother of the rambunctious boys both behind and in front of me in line. Thankfully neither happened - I think the former attributing to my declining the signed player cards. (I'd probably lose them.) Somehow the coach (Tom Soehn) shoved a signed one of him in my hands, and my reaction was, "Uhhh… thanks?"

Anyway, my absolute favorite person of the night was Ben Olsen - the kids absolutely love this guy, and for good reason - he's an awesome soccer player, and totally goofy around them. I have to say, all the guys were in good spirits despite having sat signing various pieces of equipment (some dude brought a DC United trash can… ) for 3 hours. My last encounter with pro athletes was at the Tour de France in '04 - not exactly the best venue for celeb interaction, plus the environment wasn't exactly, uh, relaxing for them - which meant basically a bunch of Europeans cyclists who had dropped 8% of their body fat in the past two weeks and had 500 more miles to go… yeah. Autographs would probably be the last thing I'd want to deal with. I guess my point is that it was cool to see all these kids meet their idols and get some inspiration. (And I quote, from Tom Soehn: "Do your homework.")

Vamos United! Next year!

Oh, and P.S. the Fire lost to New England Revolution yesterday. Jerks finally got what they deserved…