Eighteen and Crumbling

I don’t know. It was a strange day…

After eating enough chocolate to kill a small cow Thursday night – depression will do that to you I guess – I found Puck on the couch, cutting up his Star Wars Angry Birds pajamas. They were, as he explained, too small, enough that his stomach stuck out “a whole half inch!”

“Mostly dry and sunny,” predicted KSDK later that morning. A little zap of lightning, thunder, downpour at lunch.

Everything was weird that evening. Unexplained traffic all the way downtown to the game. Heavy gray skies. Weepy clouds. Was the whole city in mourning?

Walked into the stadium; packed. A young guy working at a kiosk asked me for my water bottle.

“Why?…”

“I want to drink it.”

Took our seats in Section 334. The most obnoxious fans I’d ever seen, sat down behind us, four Brewers adults and four Brewers kids. They never shut up. Booing, screaming, yelling, f-bombing, throwing peanuts off the edge of the deck.

The game was falling apart. Despite some smiles from Jay and Descalso in the dugout, and a chest bump from Holliday to the trainer, which sent the trainer sprawling, Waino was clearly off. No smiles. The whole team, and the crowd, was off. Errors, bad calls on the field, McDreamy ejected (clearly already upset about the week). Sandwiched in by drunk frat boys, Hawkeye fans, Cubs fans, White Sox, Royals. Heck, the camera crews in the stadium starting filming the moon on the big screen. The moon. At least Matt Holliday hit his 11th home run of the season. My single consolation.

When we finally walked back to the parking garage and got into the elevator, a young drunk gaunt guy stared wide-eyed at me, solemnly.

“You must be so sad… Your Allen Craig shirt… I was distraught. Dis-traught.”

Wasn’t everyone?

After sitting in another 40 minutes of traffic and late night mist after dropping Carrie off at the Big House, I capped off the night watching a clip of Shelby Miller tearing up over losing his best friend, Joe, to the Sox.

What a mess.