When Baseball Isn’t Used as an Analogy for Sex
I’m not a huge gambler, I realize that gambling makes people lose money more often than not, and I don’t exactly have excess amounts of money to lose (although, when I do gamble, I write the money off as “entertainment value”). It is for this reason especially that I don’t drink when I gamble. I’m afraid that I will become too aggressive and hit when I should fold, or keep playing even after I’ve lost my car (luckily, I don’t own a house to lose). It is for this reason that casinos in Vegas will feed you free alcohol while you are playing on the floor (I’ve heard they are actually working on administering it intravenously). They want to get you good and liquored up so you lose money. After all, they wouldn’t give away those drinks unless they made more money because of it.
Recently, I was reminded why it’s a bad idea to bet when you’re wasted. If you’ll recall, New Girl recently told me that she knew my Lesbian Ex-Girlfriend - quite a coincidence. I said in that post that she invited me to a baseball game (the literal type), but that’s not exactly true. As it turns out, New Girl had plans to go to the game with her roommate, but the roommate bailed for undisclosed reasons.
She then offered me and my sister the tickets. Unfortunately my sister’s flight was leaving about 20 minutes after opening pitch, so that was impossible. New Girl said she wasn’t going to go to the game because she didn’t want to go by herself, so I asked what she was doing in lieu of the game and she said nothing. Then she went on to tell me about how the last time she had been to a baseball game was when she was five.
She is a master manipulator – she must have learned her guilt trip skills from my mom, but I can always tell when my mom is trying to guilt trip/manipulate me. I didn’t see it coming from New Girl, which makes me think that she took the teachings of my mother, but then infused them with the ancient martial arts skills of the ninja – that way she is able to manipulate without anybody noticing at all. And she definitely managed to manipulate me (which is not a bad thing) because I ended up inviting myself to the game with her, although she was definitely inviting me to invite myself, if that makes any sense.
During one of our previous lunches together, I had told her that my favorite thing to do was drink copious amounts of alcohol in the parking lot, and if at all possible, not go into the game at all, but if that wasn’t possible, stay for a minimal amount of innings. She agreed that drinking in the parking lot was a good idea, so on the way I picked up a 12 pack of Bud Light.
I wish we could drink on the metro, because that would have made the ride so much better, but that’s not the way the world works, so we had to wait until we got to the stadium, and then walk against the flow of people walking to the stadium to get to the parking lot where we managed to drink the entire 12 pack between the two of us. Somehow she managed to trade a warm Bud Light to some random passerby for an ice cold Sam Adam’s Summer Ale. The random passerby was not pleased by the trade, but New Girl had already started drinking his beer so he just kept on walking.
After drinking 10 of the beers, we decided it would be a good idea to go inside, so we shoved the remaining two Bud Lights down New Girl’s purse and walked in. New Girl was nervous that our precious beer would get confiscated at the gate. I assured her that there was a 40% chance this wouldn’t happen – this did not seem to assuage her. I then told her the worst that happens is that they find the beers and drink them in front of us. Luckily, New Girl’s paranoia played in our favor as she intricately hid the beers and managed to keep the CSC guy checking bags at the gate from finding them.
I explained to her that we just managed to save $13, she was not as ecstatic as I thought she would be. I mean, you could buy a lot of processed cheese for that much money, if you had a dog that much cheese would put them in doggy heaven.
We got to our seats but we didn’t actually sit in them. There were other people already sitting in them, but instead of removing them, the usher just told us to take seats that were closer. Extremely lazy ushers like this are your best friend when you are 5 rows up from first base and you have beers which were clearly not purchased in the stadium in plain view.
When we got into the game the Nationals were down 7-1, the outlook was not good. I wasn’t expecting them to win, especially since they had lost every single game that I’ve been to this season. I explained this to New Girl, but she was optimistic. She thought that the Nationals would comeback and win. I told her that nothing was impossible, but this was highly improbable, she didn’t care.
By this point we had finished the beers that we brought in with us, and New Girl had ordered two more beers for the low low price of $13; which, if you consider the fact that they were 16 oz bottles instead of 12 oz cans, still makes them hella expensive. At this point New Girl starts telling me how exciting this game is, and she’s right, the Nationals, at this point, were within 3 runs. She also started repeating things that she had said previously and not remembering that she had already asked me certain questions (how many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a lesbian!). Basically, she was wasted.
In her wasted state, she had found a new confidence in our team. Now she wanted to bet me that the Nationals would win. I agreed, terms unknown, but I told her that one of the conditions of the bet would be that she had to come up with the terms of the bet, to this she agreed. It quickly became the ninth inning and the nationals were down by one run with runners on the corners. I reminded her of our bet and she insisted that I come up with the terms. I begrudgingly did come up with the terms, and they were great terms. Whoever lost had to get the bar tab of the winner.
New Girl reminded me about how exciting this game was; I reminded her that I’ve never seen the Nationals win this year. Forgetting that she just told me how exciting the game was, she once again told me how exciting the game was. I was amused.
The Nationals of course lost the game, the batter struck out leaving the tying run on third with the winning run on first. But there is a silver lining to every bad situation, and the silver lining to this particular situation is that I won the bet. New Girl was upset that she lost, but happy that the game was so exciting, as she explained once again. I was upset that I had actually stayed until the end of a game. My goal was to go to as many baseball games as possible and see as few innings as possible. Staying until the end of the game greatly increased the innings/game ratio.
She offered me to drive her home, which was fine, she wasn’t that far out of my way, the only problem was that while I generally knew the area in which she lived, I had no clue the actual location of her domicile. But I drove back anyway, she was barely directing me. As we got close to her house, she told me the name of the street that that I had to turn onto to get to her place. This street was actually only a few streets down from where I used to live my senior year of school, so I was pretty familiar with this specific area.
She then told me that I would have to turn at a certain light. I told her that it was not the correct light, she said that it was, and I retorted with “Wanna bet?”, and to my chagrin she accepted the wager. Of course, I knew that I was right, the street to which she was referring was the actual street that I lived on during senior year. She wagered 2 beers, but taking every opportunity I can to say “give me four beers” I upped the ante to four beers. She accepted.
The road did not magically change names so I won that bet as well. I think it’s important to understand that at this point New Girl was drunk to the point where not even Vegas would take her bets. After telling me once more the wrong street to turn onto, she finally directed me to her house. I said goodbye, made sure she made it into her house OK and then drove home, the happy winner of a complete bar tab and 4 beers, which I stipulated must be doled out on separate occasions.
I almost felt bad telling her several days later that I wasn’t going to hold her to the bets, if only because while she was at the game she explained how competitive she was and how she was a woman of her word and she doesn’t back down from a wager, etc. Of course, I shouldn’t have felt bad because she was secretly (not so secretly after I told her) hoping that I wouldn’t hold her to the bet.
This may be my last week of work, but I have a feeling I will see this girl while I am out one night, and when I do, I may not hold her to the entire bet, but I’m at least going to make her buy the first round, because I’m pretty sure had she won I’d be buying her Grey Goose martinis all night long.
Other posts by Justin
September 25th, 2007 at 10:20 am
[…] Everybody knows baseball as an analogy for sex. At least, I thought everybody knows what the bases mean, until I brought it up in conversation as fact and I was questioned, “Well, what do you consider second base” they queried. I told them what second base was, but they didn’t agree. […]