By ‘strosrays

Seven Straight Losses On The Road And I’m A-Gonna Make It Home Tonight

Reds (19-33) at Astros (21-29)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford St.
Houston, TX  77002

a/k/a “Waterloo”, “Agincourt”, “The Crimea”, “Thermopylae”

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Tuesday, May 29, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSN
Wednesday, May 30, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSN
Thursday, May 31, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSN

First of all, let me take this opportunity to apologize to Whoopass Nation for the tardiness of the posting of this Series Preview.  If nothing else, this should be convincing evidence to the mods here that I should probably never, ever be assigned to write anything that will come due just after a three-day holiday weekend.

Jesus H. Spare Rib, do I have a headache.  Yesterday was of course a day set aside for the celebration and remembrance of all those before us who paid the ultimate price to protect our freedoms and our way of life. It was also the final day of three days of abject dissolution, culminating with my neighborhood’s bi-annual “block party” (the other occurs on Labor Day), where every “grown up” on our street and the two on each side of us listens to loud classic rock music, eats obscene amounts of barbecued meat (slathered with sticky-sweet sauce and burnt, mostly); and pinto beans, potato salad, casseroles of dubious origin, etc.; and drinks enough beer and whatever else to float Derek Bell’s yacht.  Usually, one or more of my neighbors will get a snootful and pass out in his/her lawn chair, or make a sloppy pass at another neighbor’s wife or husband or teenage daughter. Sometimes the police are called in. Usually there are no lasting hard feelings, though, and in general a good time is had by all.

This time I was assigned about 40 lbs. of ribs (which never see BBQ sauce as long as they are under my control, thanks), plus chicken, and Italian sausage and kielbasa (my family is of mixed heritage.)  After 6-8 hours of slaving over the pit, I felt lodgy and mesquite- and pecan-smoked.  Pretty drunk, too.  It was sometime after that, probably around 8:00 p.m. or so, that my wife and I and several other couples were sitting around on lawn chairs in my neighbor Andrew The CPA’s driveway, listening to the Stones turned up loud and slamming down Heinekens, and enjoying lively if slurred and senseless neighborly conversation.  Somewhere in there Andrew’s wife, Dawn, who has said about two words to me in the ten years I’ve known her, decided to jump into the conversation.  After about ten too many ‘West Beaumont’ cosmopolitans (I think they were substituting 80 proof Patrón for the vodka), she decided to start divulging to all of us some of her most private sexual fantasies, in intricate detail. Then, by way of illustration I guess, she suddenly stood up unsteadily and yelled something (we were listening to a CD of  Exile on Main St., and the song “Rocks Off” had just kicked in), and then ripped open her floral print shirt to reveal some good old all-American size 34DD’s (she wasn’t wearing a bra – some of the wives on my block have recently taken up going sans brassiere around the neighborhood, I’ve noticed.)  I was trying to get a better look at what all those guys died fighting for, by squinting out of one eye, when my wife decided it was time to call it a night.

On the walk home, full of meat and beer and with the thought of my neighbor’s old lady’s tits still vivid in my head, it suddenly occurred to me for some reason, “Oh fuck!  I’ve got a Series Preview due in the morning.”

So when I got home, I took a shower and then went straight to bed.Read More