Your Rambi is recovering from a typical Rambiday yesterday. Do you remember my rather braggardly tale of the great ass? Well, my hubris led to the vengeance of the gods.
BUt I must back up to begin my tragedy....
Yesterday, a beautiful day, was the first playoff game for Dan's Senior Men's Hardball League and Dan was pitching. I haven't seen a game all summer, and decided it was time to be a supportive spouse. We started into Dallas a bit late, because it took me a while to collect my hat, and sunglasses, and umbrella, and books, and cokes, and suntan lotion. I noticed we were low on gas, but Dan said, "we'll get it on the way home. The light's not on." (ahh- you say- foreshadowing!)
Now it's 2:30 and I haven't eaten a thing all day because I went to church and then just never seemed to get to it, so I dropped him off and went looking for a McD's. We're in Dallas, for God's sake, there should be one on every corner. But no---I drive and drive and then the car starts being weird. I'm on a busy 6 lane city street, in the left hand turn lane, with ten cars in back of me and it just--dies. THe E light never had gone on. So I turn on my emergency lights, get out, shrug at the line of cars honking at me, and start off to find a gas station. THe first one I go to, some Indian guy says, yeah they have gas cans- for 5.00.
"But I just need to take it over there- I can bring it right back. DOn't you have one I can borrow?" We look out at the street where cars are honking and backing up and shaking their fists at my poor Sebring.
"No, must buy." He says.
"Well, I'll just go across to that Diamond Shamrock then," I say haughtily, and leave. The Diamond Shamrock also has cans for sale, for 6.00. Since I'm not about to go back to the Texaco and eat dirt, I fork out the 6.00 and get 2.00 worth of gas and trudge back to the car, where people are still honking and swearing at me as I pass. On the way, I peel the price tag off, just in case the Texaco man looks out and thinks I had to buy it.
The can has one of those goose necks, and I can't figure it out- by the time I get the gas in the tank, if you lit a match near me, I would combust immediately, like a little kerosene soaked rag.
Now I'm really hungry so I drive a little farther. Aha! A Barnes and Noble! I had wanted to get The Moral Animal that E has been recommending, so I stop, figuring I can get a frappuccino at the same time and that would hold me through the game. I wander the store looking for a clerk. No one is working. No one. I finally go to the checkout and complain becuase I am NOT happy. The teenage girl says pertly, Oh, that's because no one is working the floor today! That's not very good, is it?
No, it sucks, I say.
She is a little surprised at my obvious hostility but she does find the book in the computer and points me toward the psychology section. But THEN, I stand in line for my frappuccino and when I get to the counter, they tell me they HAVE NO FRAPPUCCINO MIX.
I am incensed. By now the game has been going on for half an hour, and I'm afraid Dan is worrying and it will affect his pitching, so I give up on sustenance and head for the ballpark.
But, wait, this is where the day really hits bottom.
I'm sitting in the stands, stomach growling, sweaty, and smelling like a gaspump, and these older couples are talking about how their sons are playing. Now pay attention- this is important--- this is the OVER 30 LEAGUE. And this old crone, who must be 75, says to me. "And do YOU have a son playing?"
If there had been any gas left in the can, I'd have chugged it.
Dan's team lost the game, and he said it was my fault because I wasn't there for the first inning. |
