Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Trading on the overnight shift made for a brutal schedule. By the time that Friday rolled around, I was often so exhausted that absolutely nothing could get me out of bed and out of the house. (Well, nothing except for my roommate, an energetic force of nature who simply refused to take no for an answer. She would march into my room, flip on the lights, and jump on my bed until I agreed to go out. Having fooled her a couple of times, saying that I was changing into my party clothes, and then promptly going back to sleep, she wouldn’t leave me unsupervised until we were safely out for the evening. “Nonsense,” she would respond when I complained that I was tired. “All you need is a Red Bull vodka or a tequila shot.” And you know what? She was usually right.)

Despite its incompatibility with normal social interaction, working vampire hours did have a few advantages, the most important being that you could do things during the day without having to take any time off work. This facet of the overnight shift was never more valuable than on opening day at Wrigley Field.

I was very excited about my first opening day experience. The plan was to meet at one of my co-worker’s apartments, and then, depending on the weather, get tickets and go to the game, or just watch from a local bar. We all left work together around 7:30am, the guys heading straight to Wrigley while I made a quick stop at my place to change. “Don’t worry,” my co-worker told me. “My place is easy to find. It’s right across the street from the ballpark and I’ll be out on the balcony wearing a felt cheeseburger hat.” His parting comment left me concerned that my intended costume change wouldn’t be nearly sufficient; a Cubs T-shirt definitely was not in the same league as a cheeseburger hat. I was clearly not going to be hanging out with amateurs.

Just as he had promised, I had no trouble locating my friend’s apartment. He was indeed holding court on the balcony, wearing said cheeseburger hat. The weather was cold and crappy, typical for early April in Chicago, so we decided to have a couple of beers at the apartment, and then hit one of the neighborhood bars. Around the end of the fourth inning, my co-worker announced that it was time to share our presence with the general public. Wearing his enormous cheeseburger hat, he shotgunned a beer “for the road” and led us down the street to the Cubby Bear.

The cheeseburger-hat-wearing leader of our entourage was an immediate hit with the drunken masses. Everyone wanted to buy him shots, and being unfailingly polite, he obliged every time. I was truly enjoying my crappy beer, in the way that is only possible when you are watching sports, when I turned around and did a double take: there was Mr. Cheeseburger, a beer in each hand, his fly unzipped, and his nuts hanging out. I assumed that this was the result of an unfortunate oversight in the men’s room so I discreetly mentioned it to him. “I know,” he said, and then promptly collapsed into giggles. Finally collecting himself, he continued to work the room while I just watched in amazement. He took photo after photo (because everyone wanted a picture with the cheeseburger guy), and no one noticed that his junk was hanging out. Not one single person.

The game had long since ended when we finally decided to call it a day. As we walked out of the bar, my friend leaned in and said “please don’t tell anyone at work that you saw my nuts.”