... is the name of a Frank Zappa tune. Probably alluding to anal sex, one imagines. Well, today's effort by Kevin Brown pretty much had me convinced it must be about a shaft up the rear end.
13 hits, 8 earned runs in 5.0 innings with only 2ks to show for it. To the lowly Tampa Devil Rays. It simply didn't matter that the Yankees did their fancy rosterwork yesterday because they were in the hole for 6 runs by the 2nd inning. This is the second time in 3 starts he's buried the Yankees in the early innings.
So here I was moping thinking "gee, this is a crap season. I think I'll trawl the net for some entertainment" and found this article.
At the store 20 minutes later, I noticed a big, round, bulky guy in a Red Sox cap standing in the meat aisle and blocking my path to the steaks. His arms crossed over his broad chest, he reminded me of the giant Paul Bunyan statue up in Bangor, and had the bored, restless look of a man waiting on his spouse. But there was something else in his expression ・besides the open hostility that surfaced when he saw my Yankees cap that made me curious. Something almost eerily familiar. I had to investigate.
"Don't mess with me, Mr. Yankee," the guy said. He'd screwed up his face, and thrust his palms out like a traffic cop to ward me off.
"Nobody's messing with anybody," I said. Then, after a brief pause, I went ahead and asked my question. "You as disgusted about how the season's started out as I am?"
The guy looked at me for a long while, rubbed his forehead with his thick mitt of a hand. The rubbing knocked his Sox cap askew and made its bill flap up and down.
"I'll tell you about disgusted," he said, stabbing a finger at the refrigerated meat case. "You see those chicken wings over there?"It would've been impossible to miss the chicken wings. Pre-fried and sold in a clear plastic tub, they looked hefty enough to have been clipped off Rodan, the monstrous flying reptile that gave Tokyo and occasionally Godzilla trouble in all those Japanese movies.
"Yeah," I said. "I see them."The guy nodded, still massaging his brow. "I love my chicken wings," he said. "Always eat chicken wings when I watch my Red Sox. But I ain't had 'em lately and won't be buyin' none here today. Appetite's gone, thanks to the Sox."
I didn't say anything for about thirty seconds. The poor guy had practically rubbed his Sox cap sideways. He seemed distraught, and I've got to admit I empathized.
"It's that bad, huh?" I said at last. A nod."You drink beer?" the guy said. "Not too much."
"Got an alcohol problem?"
"No," I said. "Just don't drink a whole lot of beer."
"So what do you do when you're home watchin' your boys lose?"
I thought about that. "Yell at the television, mostly," I said.
"Break stuff?"
"Used to, but it made my wife mad and scared the cats," I said. "Nowadays I settle for punching the couch."The guy stared at me again, bobbed his head in what I took for commiseration. Then he swallowed hard.
"Without my chicken wings," he said, "the beer's all I got."
I looked at the guy, feeling sad for him. Could be he didn't completely hate my New York-issue guts for a second or three there. For snippet of a minute, it wasn't about being a Red Sox fan or a Yankees fan. We'd temporarily put aside team allegiances to find common ground in our disappointment over the young season.
"You better start drinkin' beer, Mister Yankee," the guy offered, then. "Way things are going this year, you're gonna need it."And with those parting words he turned away, obviously sick of me. Which was okay. I was plenty sick of him too.
Oh, I've already got a sinking feeling as I tune in to find Kevin-getting-pounded-for-a-Brown has given up 6 runs in the bottom of the first.
Don't ask me about my Combat Wombats. They're Slump Bunnies again.
- Art Neuro
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