California Dreaming

Okay, this is how it went down. This is how I ended up getting physically evicted from Marin County. It isn't a pretty story.

It was a bright sunny morning in the Bay Area, and a perfect day for Little League baseball. The parking lot at the Woodacre Community Ballpark was filled with Toyota Priuses, and the occasional Volvo. The Giants, my little friend Eric's team, was losing badly.

The entrance to the ballpark had a sign, "Let's all remember that the players here are children…the coaches are volunteers…please refrain from yelling…" This was not soccer in the San Francisco Mission, where my older kids had done their youth sports, with the air filled with the thunderous yells of Latino immigrant Moms and Dad, "Ataque!!!" "Ataque!!!"

As I watched the game my mind began to wander into dangerous territory, "I wonder what would happen if…" Finally my alien curiosity got the best of me. As one of my little friend's teammates was struck out in three straight pitches by a girl whose auburn hair was tied back in a ponytail, I decided to try a cultural experiment. I stood up, cupped my hands at my mouth for amplification and yelled.

"Jesus Christ! Kick their asses Giants. You are losing to a girl!"

The crowd went silent, stunned. I could feel the stares at the back of my neck. I waited a full thirty seconds before launching into Act II. I turned and faced the bleachers behind me, a sea of dumbstruck faces now fully exposed as the disposable latte cups were lowered to chest level.

"This was a test of the emergency politically correct broadcast system. It is only a test. In the event of a genuine breach of the Marin politically correct security system you will be told which NPR station to turn to for information." I waited for laughter. Their stares only grew more blank.

The first of the latte cups hit me on the chest, still half full. Its contents splattered on my 'Coca is Not Cocaine' t-shirt. Three others followed, two to the head and another landed on my sneakered feet. Dazed, I heard the faint yell of one of the fathers yelling, "Non-violence, non-violence." But he did not seem interested in rescuing me.

I tried to distract them once again by chanting "Yes we can! Yes we can!" But my apparent loyalties in the Democratic presidential race seemed to only further enflame a lesbian couple who I later learned drove the Silver Prius with the Hillary sticker on the back. They were the ones who called the police. I am certain of it.

As I was slid, handcuffed, into the back seat of a Prius police car owned and operated by the neighboring Fairfax P.D., the game resumed. I watched as the Giants' rivals scored another two runs on a double that should have been an easy fly out. The latte sellers were back in the stands doing a brisk business. I was driven to the northern entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge, asked if I has bus fare for the waiting #23 that would take me into San Francisco. I replied that I did, but not in exact change. One of the police gave me ten dimes for a dollar bill.

"Does this happen often?" I asked him as he got back into the car.

Maybe once a week or so, though not usually at Little League games. We don’t get many outsiders for those. Last week we had a guy from San Jose who flipped out at the Fairfax health food store when he saw the prices of yogurt-covered pretzels. A young mother started throwing gummy bears at his head. It took three of us to break it up.

Okay, I think I might have daydreamed all this, except the part about the Giants losing badly. And the girl on the mound. Her arm was scary. She would have struck me out. And the spilling latte part. I'm a little clumsy. And my t-shirt doesn't have any words on it.
Don't tell anyone in Marin that I wrote this okay? I like it there and I'd like to be able to visit once in a while.