The ROOT of all EVIL

The ROOT of all EVIL

Last night I rooted for the Yankees to lose.  They did.  I gloated.  Julie warned me that that’s bad hoodoo.  I could upset the baseball gods.  But I’m an Agnostic, so is that really an issue?  It is when your team is facing elimination.

Tonight the Phillies host the Cardinals for the last time in 2011.  No matter what happens, these 2 teams are done playing each other until 2012 (the year the world ends – so I guess the Cubs will win it all next year).  I have already been told by a coworker, that if the Phillies lose tonight it’s my fault.  “You were too cocky” is his reasoning.  Not “Our 161 million dollar pay roll team forgot how to hit a baseball” but “You were too cocky.”  And honestly, I wasn’t.  I have been cocky in the past.  But this year, all I said was, “I’m not worried.”  Is that cocky?  Don’t get me wrong during the game, I am on the edge of my seat.  I scream at umpires (and cats when they attempt to climb the TV – they love squirrels, who knew?).  I die with the lows and am reborn with the highs.  But in the end I’m not worried. 

But when the Yankees got eliminated (on an A-Rod strike out nonetheless) I had a sinking feeling.  Not that I was worried, but that if we beat the Cardinals and then go on to beat the winner of the Brewers/Diamondbacks series, and finally play the Rangers or Tigers (Rangers) on the World stage, will it mean the same?  We had unfinished business with the Bronx Bombers that will remain unfinished no matter what happens tonight.  That’s kind of a bummer.  Don’t get me wrong. The World Series is the World Series.  Hell, we beat the Royals and the Rays in our franchise history (Rangers would keep the alliteration alive).  But to beat the Yankees would have been glorious!

Hold the phone bubba!  You gotta get there first!  This I’m aware of.  I know it could all come crashing down tonight.  But I’m not worried.  I had a great time this year.  Even struggling to get tickets as the ball park seems to be busting at its seams with capacity every game.  Where were all of these “fans” when Travis Lee was playing first base?  If our season ends tonight, there will undoubtedly be throngs of people labeling this team a FAILURE.  “This shouldn’t happen with this pay role and these pitchers.”  Tell that to The Red Sox Nation.  But I’m not worried.

I have built in a contingency plan:

I have a very good friend, Gordon Wood Holmes III (that’s right, there are 2 others!) who is a huge Cardinals fan.  Right now, our friendship has a mandatory BLACKOUT.  We haven’t talked since this series began, nor will we until sometime tomorrow.  I have no problem calling him to congratulate him if that comes to pass.  If the unthinkable should happen and St Louis should win this series tonight, I will also have no problem rooting for that squirrely team the rest of the way.  But I have been reading Games Of Thrones.  If the Cardinals win and Gordon gloats, I’ll ruin the whole fucking series he holds so dearly. 

I’m not worried.  But the Starks should be.

Go Phillies!

The Treats from Dunkin Donuts

The Treats from Dunkin Donuts

So I am in line at Dunkin Donuts…you know, getting “health food.”  There is this woman’s voice to my right.  I am forced to turn and look at The Source because it sounded half cartoon/half “Real Housewives of Some Random Bumkinfuck town.”  She is, of course, deck out in a velour jogging outfit which she must have just bought recently since neither it, nor her “shape” looked well exercised in.

I order an everything bagel.  And why not?  When given a choice between everything and nothing, who wouldn’t take everything?  I then wait…patiently.  As I wait The Source is given what I assume is an ice coffee. 

“No.  Too much milk.  That looks like a glass of milk.”  She demands through her enormously oversized sunglasses.

It didn’t look like milk by the way.  Unless this “milk” is from the lake in Willy Wonka’s world where the Oompa Loompa’s defecate (it’s not, I asked).

The woman working behind the counter, kindly removes the drink and leaves to fix the situation.  Just then another employee says “Everything Bagel.”  The Source’s friend, we’ll call her Mary, takes the bag.  I realize, since I ordered first, that is probably my bagel.  But no big deal.  I’ll get hers.  See, patience. 

“It’s too big,” blurts out Mary (I assume she was referring to the bagel and not The Source’s velour covered bottom).

“Make the cut it in half.”  The Source recommends rather forcefully.

Really?  “Make them.”  Why not, “Kindly ask if one of these fine people would mind cutting the bagel, you stole from the guy next to us, in half so your big fucking mouth but rarely cared for teeth can better handle the girth.”  OK, she didn’t have to say “girth.”

Mary thrusts the bag back towards another person behind the counter without saying a word.  There are always SO many people working at a Dunkin Donuts at a given moment.  Why is that?  Luckily this person either overheard everything happening, or SOP at DD is to cut something in half when handed back to you in a rude manner.

As the DD employee starts to perform surgery on the bagel, I am handed my “uncut” bagel, which reminds me Yom Kipper begins Friday at sundown folks!

I thank the employee and turn to leave when the first woman comes back with the correctly made ice coffee.

“Did you just dump it out and use the same cup?  No!  I want a new cup.”  The Source turns to toothless Mary and says, “Huh, some people, right?”

“Yep they can be real cunts!”  I say to them as I leave.

Patience.