Opalescence

This must be a day that will live on in infamy.

For those of you that don’t know, the last few weeks have been less than ideal for me, in many ways.  I won’t elaborate, but you know the kind: the pets hate you, your car breaks down, and you find you’ve used WAAAY more of your anytime minutes this month than you thought you did… all at the same time.  I’m not saying any of those things have happened to me lately, but it’s that kind of level of built frustration.

Today, I had, on top of everything else, one of "those" days.  And it was my own fault.

A routine trip to the grocery store turned yet again into another one of those ordeals that has elicited the quote from Niles Crane with which I head this entry.

Imagine, if you will, going out to get a few items you need for the household.  You make a list of them, clip coupons carefully beforehand, and make sure you have everything before heading out.  You go to the store and, after a minor bit of annoyance with the parking (construction people were pulling up the concrete "lines" between larger slabs of the lot), get in and start picking out your necessities.  Aside from a momentary mind-blank where I forgot where the gravy mixes were placed, this went without incident.

Then the moment of crumbling starts.  You get to the checkout line, empty your cart, and start searching around for the coupons.  Fortunately, I hadn’t been carrying them; Sara produced them for me, and I got ready to show them to the checkout woman.

Unfortunately, I had (or was SUPPOSED to have) responsibility for my own wallet.

It begins with a casual sweep of the pockets, your hands brushing inside for the familiar feel of leather, or plastic, or whatever your wallet may happen to be made of.  When I didn’t find it–my hands having located my cell phone, car keys, spare change, and the coupons which have so absently gone into my pockets–I gave what must have been the "Tony Perplexed" look (I’ve been told this look is very comical to behold) and swept my pockets again.  Nothing.

Then I try my back pockets.  While I proved adept at locating a comb and small notepad in them, no wallet meets my hands.  About this time the checkout woman is asking how I am today, and before she scans any items, I motion for her not to do anything and reply, "I’m not sure.  I can’t find my wallet."

It’s embarrassing having to ever say those words, but even more so when you really can’t find it after a few moments of searching.  Sara went and searched the car, but found nothing, so we decided to put everything back on the grocery cart, and Sara would wait there with the groceries while I went home to retrieve my absent wallet.

Fifteen minutes later, I was nearing the grocery store again, having pulled my wallet out of a pair of jeans I’d recently worn.  A quick call on the phone revealed that Sara was starting to worry; she’d had time to read an entire magazine while I was gone.  I suggested that if she could read the magazine in its entirety in 15 minutes, that she should probably worry more about the magazine, but I digress.

So I get back to the store, and we load the groceries onto the conveyor belt.  The checkout woman, who I found out had time to go and take a break–and come back–while I was off on my fool’s quest, laughed and uttered a pleasant, "Well, look who’s back!" as she started to ring me up.  I produced my card ahead of time, but it didn’t stop her from asking if I found it.  We start ringing up groceries, and I give her the coupons.

This is where the next complication started.  I’m used to seeing sales that say "10 for $10" and buying 3 or 4 such items at those rates.  Well, when you see something that says, "4 for $5" in a coupon, you HAVE to buy in those quantities to get the savings on the coupon… as I found out with several of them, with which I hadn’t gotten the required 3 or 4 or whatever items.  We decided to go with the savings and get the extras, but it required holding up the line a few more minutes while Sara, bless her heart, went and got what we needed.

Sara, of course, had some fun with this (though to be fair, she was also sympathetic: "It’s just one of those days, sweetie.").  As we were loading groceries into the trunk, she joked that I need to make sure I don’t lock the keys in the car this time, too–because, as I tend to do when I’m making mistakes, I started recall another incident where my memory had affected my ability to leave the grocery store with any dignity, and told her about how I locked myself out of my car.  Last Halloween.  While wearing a Jedi costume.

While we were driving back home and I was trying to burn all memory of this fiasco from my conscious memory (while driving, no less), Sara casually asked where I found my wallet.  And in a moment that will be forever burnt into my memory, I answered, "In my jeans."

To which Sara laughed and chortled, "I left it in my other pants!"

Oh yes.  This is a day that will live on in infamy, indeed.

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Have you heard what’s going on in Chicago?

It seems the White Sox are going to the World Series.  And while I’m very happy to know the White Sox will have a chance bring a World Series Championship home, I’m not so ecstatic that White Sox fans are going to start thumbing their collective noses at Chicago Cubs fans while this is going on.  Perhaps it’s a trick of slanted journalism, but I am currently of the opinion that most White Sox fans have less class than their North Side neighbors.

Think I’m wrong?  Check out this commentary by Eric Zorn.  The material he quotes regarding South Side hatred of Cubs fans is typical of many of the reactionary stories I read at the time.  Sox fans, I’m sorry to say, were acting like a bunch of spoiled brats who, hungry for attention their well-performing sibling was getting, would do nothing but predict how badly that sibling would fail.  Doing a quick search of articles in the wake of the Sox’s new victory, I found, among others, this article, in which a Sox fan says if they win the Series, he’ll call up every Cub fan he knows and tell them to go scratch their nose.

I remember following the Cubs’ 2003 shot at the NL title, and reading an inordinate amount of venom and whining from Sox fanatics who, in addition to repeating their often-heard "we’re treated so badly, like a second class team, the Cubs get all the press" drivel, seemed to wish the Cubs nothing but failure and that they’d be waiting for the moment they did with enthusiasm.

I’m sorry, what city are you in?  And while I’m at it, how old are you?

To be fair, I’ve done searches for less-than-dignified reactions of Cub fans to this event. In all honesty, I have found fewer and less vitriolic instances of bad sportsmanship among them.  In fact, Zorn’s post (above) is one of the worst offenders, calling on Cub fans not to support the White Sox during this period.  I’m not saying that Cub fans will necessarily be rooting for the Sox at this point (and who could blame them?), but it seems–so far–that North Side fans have a little too much class to wish their South Side brethren a failure, or make them feel bad for being successful.

I am a Cub fan, and have been since I was 10 years old.  I’ve never had anything against the White Sox as a team–in fact, I’ve actually been to more White Sox games than Cubs games–and plan to root for them in the World Series.  But I doubt I’ll ever forget wondering about Sox fans’ acidic sentiments from a couple years ago, when the biggest crime the Cubs had committed against them was actually earning the bigger limelight of success.

What the hell did we ever to do to them? I wondered.

I hope the Sox do win the World Series, and bring a Championship home to Chicago.  But unlike that snooty fan from the second article, I’ll know the real reason the Sox won, the real reason why any sports teams (without a gargantuan bankroll) succeeds at something like this.  They will have had the collective support of their entire home town behind them, which is more than I can say for the Cubs a couple years ago.

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