I was at the game last night. As most of you know, the on-field entertainment last night was, to put it generously, subpar. Luckily for me, I was in section 554, and the entertainment within my section was well worth the price of admission.
When Abreu hit his home run, this lady behind me started complaining that Aviles didn’t even try to catch it. In case you missed the game, the ball went over the 19 foot wall in left. Upon hearing her complaining, I turned to my cousin, laughing softly, and pointed out, again, that the ball was unplayable due to it being 20+ feet in the air. Apparently, she was eavesdropping on my conversation and did not like this.
She dumped her thing of popcorn on my head. I didn’t see it, and I actually gave her the benefit of the doubt because she said "Oh sorry" when I turned and looked at her, so I figured she dropped it or something and paid no mind. For the next ten minutes, I hear her continually fuming, saying "I paid for these tickets", "I’m gonna kill him" etc. Her boyfriend this entire time is telling her to calm down. I actually feel pretty bad for the boyfriend because it’s very clear that he just wants to watch the game. Well, me not responding apparently was not the reaction she was looking for, because she then tossed her empty bag at me, causing her boyfriend to tell her to knock it off.
The next 150 seconds was something I can’t adequately describe. This woman began severely hyperventilating, gritting her teeth, grunting, and saying through forced grunts to her boyfriend that he needed to hold her down/get her out of here because she was going to kill me. Her boyfriend finally took her and they left, much to my relief. I awaited a slap/punch to the head, but it never came.
As someone who gets to see maybe ~4-5 games a year and even less at Progressive Field, I wasn’t about to start a fight over some popcorn on my head. And I’m actually really thankful that this episode happened because that lady gave me my go-to story for the next 10 years or so. And I will say that I did feel a little guilty getting so much enjoyment out of this because I have a feeling that she has some sort of mental deficit; it’s highly unusual for someone to reat in the way that she did over what I did. Hell, I didn’t even turn and talk to her; I just mentioned to my cousin, fairly quietly, mind you, that the lady behind us did not understand the concept of a 19-foot wall.
Despite the team falling all over itself and me coming within an inch of getting assaulted, I’ll be back at the game tonight before we head back to California tomorrow!