i took too many pictures of all the memorabilia (Thurman Munson's golf bag included), bought an overpriced All-Star Game cap and beat Michael easily at the baseball trivia booth. there were a lot of things to do there—call a famous play, race someone 90 feet between bases, throw virtual pitches to, say, Derek Jeter. most of the lines were too long to wait in, but toward the end of the day we decided to try the batting cages.
the queue for the cages was also pretty long, but looked worth the wait. Michael, his sister and her boyfriend easily stepped over the velvet ropes that were set up to keep the queue organized. as i lifted my flip-flopped foot to do the same, i had a premonition that it was going to end badly. about 1.3 seconds later i knew i was right.
my back foot got stuck somehow on the rope and i landed very, very hard on both knees. the cement floors of the convention center were covered with green carpet for the event, so i had scrapes and rug burns to boot. my left knee also swelled to the size of—how appropriate—a baseball.
but the best/worst part was that the disruption i made at my part of the rope line caused the silver poles holding the ropes to fall down, one by one, like wooden soldiers. and there were many silver poles. they just kept going. clunk, clank, clunk.
Michael helped me up and tried to make it better, but i was mortified. my eyes welled up like a big baby, partly from the pain, partly from—when can i NOT make an ass of myself in public? i can't imagine my clumsiness will magically get better the older i get.
i was able to laugh about it a little later, and the swelling went down once i got home and put an ice pack on my knee. while the scrapes and burns have healed, the bruises are just ripening now, a lovely reminder of my gracefulness.
and after all that, i didn't even have a good session in the batting cage. the best i did was foul a few pitches off.
put me on the DL, please.
mb
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