A Meandering Path
The first inning had some action as the visiting pitcher struggled with control and gave up a run on a double steal, but then there was a long lull where the Giants’ pitcher, Matt Cain, retired batter after batter and the opposing pitcher mostly fumbled his way through the lineup, aided by San Francisco’s lackluster offense. As the bleacher crew worked through various libations, they grew more vocal and variously entertained themselves with chants directed at the opposing left fielder (“What’s the matter with Wa-aard!?” “He’s a BUM!”) and engaged in some semi-friendly heckling of the non-Giants fans in the crowd (“Hey, MEAT!”) which eventually resulted in a couple of relatively harmless ejections.
After another late inning run by the Giants, it seemed all but over. Naturally once Cain was replaced by the closer (Brian Wilson, apparently on hiatus from the Beach Boys) things started happening on offense for the other team but it was a long wait in the middle there between initial fireworks and the relative thrill of the final moments.
Clearly Undefined
The worst part of the entire experience was the IV. The last time I had something stuck in my vein and left there was the ill-fated attempt to give blood for a work-sponsored drive that had ended with me nearly passing out from some mysterious reaction to the process. This time it took two separate nurses the better part of twenty minutes to identify a suitable vein and once the apparatus was installed, it ached and caused me discomfort the entire visit. A visit, mind you, that was interminable as they had to “wait for lab results,” which is ER-speak for “sit there and try not to die of boredom.” In fact fifteen minutes after their estimated time to receive the results, they sent an auxiliary nurse in to collect yet another sample of blood which effectively doubled the time we had to wait.
Naturally we had skipped dinner in favor of the emergency room, so if the boredom didn’t get us, starvation seemed to be their backup plan.
At last an extremely annoyed-looking doctor came in and said, “Sometimes we don’t figure out what the problem is. But in this case, it definitely isn’t your heart.” This, I gathered, was meant to be reassuring although as an engineer (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) I find that kind of apathetic shoulder shrugging to be less than satisfactory.
“Probably,” he continued, “It’s muscular.”
I could only nod.
Worse Than Originally Feared
A different freeway but a familiar circumstance: A folded-over radial truck tire just cleared the Cadillac in front of us. Nik was driving, and traffic was moving but heavy. The thick “whap” as we rolled helplessly over the tire was unmistakable: Where the Cadillac’s clearance had been sufficient, ours was not. Soon after a heavy scraping sound forced us to pull over. This time there was no concrete slab to obscure the view: The front bumper was cracked in half and the heavy gauge plastic that served to protest the engine from the bottom had pulled free of the secure position behind the bumper and was dragging on the ground. I tried to secure it by hand back into place, but less than a quarter mile down the road and the sound began again.
We were close to our destination so we went ahead and exited, finding a gas station where we could park and I could shred my knees on the hot, uneven pavement as I tried in vain to free the protective cover from it’s stubbornly clinging fasteners. Eventually the situation was corrected but I later thought that it was unlikely a tire had caused such extensive damage. Something else was probably the real culprit, something like a projectile mud flap.
Read Carefully
By some miracle we arrived at the station almost simultaneously: Me, coming North on 680 from Santa Clara and my buddy Ryan and his companions coming West from over the hill. We’d communicated the entire trip via text message because in some twisted bizzaro fashion it had become illegal to talk on our cell phones while driving but somehow acceptable to compose and send typed messages. As I approached they finished purchasing their tickets and I slid my debit card from my wallet. In the Out Of Service terminal next to me, a BART employee worked to get the machine working again. I struggled—momentarily—to get the card oriented correctly when the employee whipped it out of my hand.
“It goes in just like in the little picture.” There was no mistaking the scorn in her voice as she initiated the transaction for me and thrust the card back into my fist.
“…’You simpleton‘,” I said, over my shoulder in the direction my incredulous party. They cast me semi-sympathetic glances but checked nervously over my shoulder to get the reaction from the technician. For a second I had a crazy surge of guilt, like I had crossed a line by suggesting sarcastically that she’d been a bit harsh. But I’d specifically made my comment loud enough so she could hear. It was she, after all, who’d felt inclined to point out my momentary confusion in spite of the fact that there was no one waiting in line behind me so no real cause for alarm that my experience might have taken a few additional seconds.
The Best Pancakes In The World
The restaurant was supposed to close at midnight. We arrived at ten till, and though we had no hope of them serving us, I had needed to use a restroom for the past thirty minutes. I resigned myself to just using their facilities and then worrying about finding a place that was open late. My arm still ached and the spots where all the EKG nodes had been ripped from my body smarted because they had taken huge clumps of chest, leg and arm hair with them. I still had work in the morning and all I wanted was some food.
When I emerged from the bathroom I was surprised to see Nik sitting at a table, perusing the menu. “They’re going to serve us?”
“I guess so,” she said simply.
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