One More Time, Gents
“AAH!”
Puck’s shout from the bathroom early that morning somehow didn’t surprise me. After an unintentional reactionary delay, I asked him what was wrong.
“There’s a spider in the bathroom! He just went doodle doodle doodle into the cabinet.”
“How long were you watching him before you decided to yell?”
“A few minutes.”
Typical.
I left this excitable young man scooching across the floor inside his green prehistoric fish sleeping bag at the Big House for Day #3 downtown by the Arch.
So while Matt Holliday took up the Sharpies, black, red, and metallic, Irish stocked up on more freebies to add to her collection from Sunday: Jon Jay headphones, Ryan Franklin tooth brush holder, Yadi catcher’s mask coin bank, Fredbird hat, Cards backpacks, Jon Jay bag, Ryan Franklin duffle bag, etc. She had raked it. Not to mention five scratchers cards revealing half-off Cards tickets and a free stadium tour which she rubbed out with a quarter from my wallet while Mike Matheny finished his stage interview and Michael Wacha wrapped up the afternoon with another 400 signings.
There were tears from high school girls, there were verge-of panic attacks from grown men. There were teenage boys saying, “My hands are shaking, Mom. I can’t see.” There was even sobbing. We had seen it all. Meeting Cardinals legends, young and old, is an Elvis-like experience.
As Irish and I enjoyed an eleven o’clock lunch – I was proud of Irish; she ate an entire hamburger and hot dog to make up for skipping breakfast; way to go, protein – she looked around sentimentally. “I feel like it’s the last day of camp. I don’t want to go back to the normal world tomorrow.”
And while every other red t-shirt-ed fan in the hotel would likely agree with her, I was pretty certain that these baseball mini gods were glad to return to off-season “leisure” for a last three weeks until Jupiter, Florida, opened its doors.
Puck was psyched for the new Cards backpack. Irish had secured two of them. He was already stretching out white glue taffy in the kitchen, had strung up the living room and dining room with a ziplock of nondescript yellow string, and was prepared to cut out a giant shiny gold crescent moon for a Mr. Rogers opera with Carrie-Bri. I’m glad he has fun aunts.