Tragedy

Never before, have i ever faced such disappointment. I’ve been living a lie. Everything I know, and love, is fake, and my heart is broken. Just as I was beginning to live out my life long dream, it was all taken away, in the blink of an eye.
As many may know, all my life, I have dreamed of achieving the goal of a lifetime. To attend at least 10 consecutive Reds Opening Days, and get my name on the jumbo-tron, and then throw a beer onto the field. The dream was almost there. My ticket is on it’s way, and that’s where it all fell apart. Part of that dream died, when we traded away the salary-thief, strike out king Adam Dunn, who was to be the target of my beer throwing. To make matters worse, I realized, that I was living one big Lie, and that I suck at math. Ladies and gentleman, this will be my 9th Reds opening day. Someone pointed this little error out to me, and I’m still in a state of shock. This will be my 9th Opening Day. How did I screw this up? Where did I go wrong. I could have sworn this was number 10, but I have double checked my math, searched through the history books, counted on my fingers, and yes, I am an idiot. It’s number 9. It is my lucky number, but my heart is broken none-the less. Apparently, when you start going to Opening day in 2001, and this year will be 2009, that makes 9 Opening Days. Nobody knows how this crazy math stuff works. I guess it’s kinda like losing that magical year when Jesus was waiting for his first birthday. Here are the games I’ve gone to, it’s all right there.

120	04-02-2001	vs Atlanta Braves	4-10	L	58-61-1
121	04-01-2002	vs Chicago Cubs	5-4	W	59-61-1
122	03-31-2003	vs Pittsburgh Pirates	1-10	L	59-62-1
123	04-05-2004	vs Chicago Cubs	4-7	L	59-63-1
124	04-04-2005	vs New York Mets	7-6	W	60-63-1
125	04-03-2006	vs Chicago Cubs	7-16	L	60-64-1
126	04-02-2007	vs Chicago Cubs	5-1	W	61-64-1
127	03-31-2008	vs Arizona Diamondbacks	2-4	L	61-65-1

I don’t know where I went wrong. Maybe I was so envious of all the old ladies who had been to so many opening Days. Maybe my brain is so tired of the reds sucking that it’s pretending to skip entire season of shitty baseball. Who knows. I still think, the 2006 Opening day should count twice, and this will be my 10th year. That year, I was waaay under dressed, as it was 60 in Columbus when I left, my friend told me it “looked nice” outside his hotel room in Cincy. (he had a lot to drink the night before, and should not have been trusted) Either way, I did not wear a jacket, or long sleeves for that matter. When we got to Cincy, it was cold, and threatening rain. Despite several pre-game beers, it was in fact, really damned cold. To make matters worse, our idiot president was to throw out the first pitch. Though I am a registered republican, this day would ensure I never vote for him, or anyone he’s related to again. Since the president was there, the security was a nightmare. We waited nearly an hour, just to get inside. This meant that by the time I had gotten inside, all the good cold weather gear had been bought at the souvenir shop. This meant, that I had to wait in line another 45 minutes or so, just to end up paying $70.00 for a womens size large windbreaker, whose sleeves barely went past my elbows, and was never worn again. My wife was also super-thrilled about spending $70.00 on a shitty reds jacket. “Honey, I bought you a jacket” does not work, if the jacket has a mustard stain on it, and is a Reds jacket to begin with. If I had married a 15 year old boy, who smoked pot, I would have been golden. Anywhoo, the reds got their asses handed to them by the cubs that day. It was not good. Traffic sucked, since the whole president thing meant that opening day started late, and we all got to experience rush hour in downtown Cincinnati. So I am petitioning to make that Opening day shit-pile count as two Reds opening days. This would mean, this season would be my 10th, I can get my name on the Jumbo-tron, throw a beer onto the field, and get on with my life. If not, I have one more year after this one, of fighting to get a ticket, the day off work, and even worse, Cincinnati Reds baseball.

In other news, my life has gotten even crappier. I’ve finally came to the realization that I can no longer consume Jalapenos, or any other really hot pepper for that matter. I love hot food, but the result is not pretty, and is actually quite painful, and un-necessary, so I have to move on. The Donato’s ‘Mariachi Beef’ pizza, is delicious, but deadly.

The only saving grace of the past few days, was my 11 month old son. This kid just keeps getting better, and better. Saturday morning, we were hanging out watching out favorite weekend morning programming, bass fishing, when he provided me with the cutest, most awesome thing I have ever seen in my life. He had pulled himself up, and was standing, holding onto the ottoman, staring at some dude real in a 5 pounder, and he started scratching his ass. If you have never seen a standing baby scratch his ass for 10 or so seconds, it is indeed the cutest thing ever. It’s also a pretty good indication that it’s time to change another diaper, which is not that awesome.