I wasn’t home when this happened, but on Wednesday morning my flatmate Robert had severe pains, called 9-1-1, and rode an ambulance to the emergency room (he’s home & OK now).
A few hours later, Dean was sitting at the kitchen table reading a book. He closed it immediately when I walked into the house, and started telling me about Robert.
When Dean talks, I usually shrivel into a ball of frustration and anxiety — Will he ever shut up? How can I escape? Just this once, though, he was conveying information worth hearing. Robert is on the very short list of humans I like, so I listened, and thanked Dean for relaying the news.
Of course, he then started telling me about what he’d cooked at the Hilton Park Hyatt Saint-Regis Four Seasons Marriott Ritz Carlton Restaurant that day, and what he’d be cooking there tomorrow, and the true story of unsalted butter, etc, until I opened my bedroom door to escape and then closed it on his face.
Settling into my recliner, I texted best wishes to Robert, but then I re-played the conversation with Dean, because something seemed off. Something often seems off, when Dean’s involved.
He’d been at home with Robert during the 9-1-1 call, and through the whole hauling away of our flatmate on a stretcher into an ambulance, so Dean knew the details, but as he’d described the details, his tone of voice had been … wrong. The implied subtext wasn’t “I’m worried about Robert,” or “Here’s what happened.” It was more like, “I can’t believe Robert’s gone back to the hospital again, after being hospitalized just a few months ago.” Hearing Dean tell it, it sounded like the set-up for a joke, lacking a punchline.
Of course, I strongly dislike Dean, so it’s possible that I misread his inference … but I’m pretty sure his tone carried a judgment — that Robert having to call 9-1-1 is icky, or a failing, like blowing your nose into your hand, or smelling your armpits.
♦ ♦ ♦
My brother Clay is a baseball nut, and I’m a recovering baseball nut. He attends the local team’s home games perhaps twenty nights every summer, and in the past I’ve gone with him once or twice, but a few years ago the crowd noise (amplified, then broadcast through the stadium’s speaker system to make it very, very loud) gave me a throbbing headache that took two days to subside, and I decided that would be my last game.
The team is doing its annual pre-season open house next weekend, and Clay’s going and invited me to come, because it’ll be a much quieter, low-key event. They open the stadium, let people wander the playing field, and some current and retired Seattle Mariners players are there. For $25, you can spend a few hours strolling the grounds, chatting with Cal Raleigh or Ichiro Suzuki, etc.
I have no interest in talking with the players. Me & Brian Woo aren’t gonna go bowling or anything, I don’t want his autograph, and I have nothing to say to him except the same things 10,000 other fans would say. But it might be fun just sitting in a seat, soaking up the ambiance and eating hot dougs while Clay talks to Woo or whoever, so I said yes, sure, I’ll go.
And I wanted to go. Really, I’d enjoy hanging out at the stadium, and some bonding and bro time with Clay.
But the next day, Clay texted me to start firming up our plans, and I suddenly remembered that it takes more than a ticket to get into the stadium.
Everyone is required to queue in a long line and be X-rayed, same as at the airport. Backpacks are allowed, but only if they’re transparent, so the security guards can see the contents. If there are any corners or compartments of the backpack that can’t be seen, a guard will open and search your possessions.
I carry a backpack everywhere, jammed with everything I might need — pills, cough drops, my notepad, pens, reading glasses, anti-Trump buttons, paper towels, half a sandwich, a rain cap, a chess set, a water jug, a pee jug…
The inspection experience always leaves me in a sour mood through at least the first few innings of the game. The last time I went, I intentionally left my backpack at home, and then didn’t even have aspirin when that headache hit.
And so, fuck it. I told Clay I couldn’t do it. An afternoon at the stadium, waddling around the bases and having a picnic on the outfield grass, might be fun, but it wouldn’t be fun enough to outweigh the shitty experience of getting wanded & having some stranger paw through my stuff. I believe in privacy, and I’m not buying a plastic see-through backpack.
Like the black guy says in Lethal Weapon, I am too old for this shit.
1/23/2026
Leave a Reply