A Massacre in Medford

This past Saturday morning I opened the back door to bring 96 to his guitar lesson, but instead screamed and slammed the door shut before any of the ten thousand flies which had alit on poor Papa Chipmunk's corpse could make it through the kitchen door. I called for 96 (98 conveniently at bowling for the morning) to take care of The Situation. I hadn't questioned why 96 had only minutes earlier gone out the back door with a bag of trash, only to return to the house through the front door.

He had of course seen the poor thing, stepped over it, and left it for me.  What a charmer, eh?

So I holler and 96 comes running (more accurately described as: he yells down from upstairs, "Wotsa-maddama?" then comes sauntering) and cleans up the corpse. While he's disposing of the body in our usual manner (hint: it involves our shovel and our creek), I'm still grossed out and leave by way of the front door, and come around to the car in the back. 96 was still by the back door, replacing the shovel we leave there in the winter to shovel snow, and apparently the rest of the year for mortuary purposes.  I see the thing is still there, and gesture towards it, about to accuse 96 of simply moving the it so I couldn't see it from the back door.  (In my defense, that could totally have happened.) Literally, it was three feet away, but just out of the line of sight from the back door. He looked down at the same time, and performed a Dick-Van-Dyke-worthy pirouette, artfully proclaiming his surprise. So he takes the shovel again and again tosses one into the creek. And we're off to guitar lessons, free of any and all things morbid and bloody in, near, or around my abode.

So why am I here again, this fine autumn Monday morning, this time alone in the house, being held hostage by the one dead thing outside the front door and another dead thing outside the back door? I thought the whole point of having teenagers was to not have to deal with dead things anymore.

Note to self: cats stay inside for a while, so that Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunks have a flipping chance to gather their winter stores in peace. They have little baby chipmunk mouths to feed!

I Have To Be The Lamest Red Sox Fan On The Planet

Tony C -- oooh, that jawline!

I have to be the lamest Red Sox fan on the planet. (Disclaimer:  Although I am not a baseball fan, my first celebrity crush was Tony Conigliaro.  Thank goodness I didn't meet Tom until after Tony died.  AWK-ward!)

I was the grateful recipient the other day of three tickets to tonight's game against the Texas Rangers at Fenway Park.  I was pleasantly surprised at how light the traffic was around Fenway driving in.  I got there plenty early, though, to park and walk and settle into our seats.  There were more happy surprises when the Park, while hopping busy, had no lines at the gate.   Once inside I'm a wee bit surprised at how full the Park is at 6:15 before a 7:10 game, but I figure the crowd is there to watch the warmup which, again surprisingly, seems to be happening on the field already. And while I always thought the teams warmed up separately, there they were, both teams on the field, warming up together. Taking turns, you could even call it.  And the crowd was freakishly enthusiastic watching the warmup. But with Red Sox Nation, you just never know.

So I settle the boys into our seats, which are actually our neighbors' seats, because our seats are filled by a group of already quite drunk guys. My first thought (well, third thought, after "Dammitall, why do you have to be drunk already?" and "And why do I have to sit next to you, Drunk Guy?") was to have 96 sit next to him, but he's already started in with the drunken blather. "Yeah, just sit there instead. I hope you don't mind if I hit on you, okay?" "Yeah, I kind of do mind," is what I was screaming in my head, but I knew I couldn't let 96 sit next to him. I made eye contact with Nice Lady In Back Of Me, and left the boys to get our beverages. When I got back with  our soda and peanuts and popcorn for 98, there was now a drunk girlfriend in my seat, next to 96, and it appeared to be actual play taking place on the field.

Hmmmm. Could I have missed the National Anthem while I was getting food? I felt badly about that. Not being a sports fan, the National Anthem is usually the highlight of  my stadium experience. I look at the scoreboard. It says we're in the bottom of the 6th.  I check and recheck our tickets and it begins to dawn on me that something is amiss. I wonder to myself if it's a double header today.   Could the security guard at the gate possibly have let me in at the end of Game 1? That would explain the DGs in our seats. It's beginning to make sense.

But that seems about as likely as the gate attendant at the airport letting me get on the wrong plane.  They're paid not to let that happen.  So I turn to NLIBOM and ask.  Shaking her head no (and do I almost see a laugh?) she went on to explain that when the game was scheduled for national broadcast, they pushed the start time back. Three hours. I guess the network forgot to call me.  Apparently, it's common knowledge that there will be a time change if a game is nationally broadcast.  This was my critical mistake.  So yeah, we got to the game in the bottom of the sixth, well after the grand slam in the fourth, part of an eight-run-inning. And it took me three outs, minimum, to figure this out.

The perp walk

On the upside, we got to see what you tv viewers missed:  the streak across the grass from left field to right and the tackle in front of our seats. The runner was fully clothed, though, so what was the point?

On the downside, that $7.25 refillable drink I got so 96 and I could split it and get free refills? Not looking like such a bargain anymore.

And in case you're wondering about that Jordan's Furniture special: If a member of the Red Sox hits this baseball on their sign (not the sign -- just the baseball) between July 22 and the end of the regular play, my new sofa will be free.