I had the wife and kid to the airport at 7:10 pm. Five minutes to unload and exchange a few kisses and then…
…FREEDOM!!!
(To put this into perspective, it wasn’t quite the Mel Gibson as William Wallace being gutted like a trout cry of “FREEDOM!!!†as much as Aretha Franklin’s “FREEDOM!!!†refrain during “Think†in The Blue Brothers.)
Oh, what the heck. Let’s roll the tape. Musical interludes are fun.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=QVImeWXWck0[/youtube]
(Don’t you feel better now? Admit it, you do. Everybody loves The Blues Brothers.)
So I’m just pulling onto the expressway when the bat phone rings. A coworker spotted yesterday’s bat signal and answered the call. He would be waiting at an old haunt of mine from back in my most epic of drinking days. I was going to begin my weekend with a step into the past. The Salty Dog was beckoning.
The Salty Dog. The building is shaped like a big boat. Kind of like Noah’s Ark. The beer is cheap; four types of draft beer and no other options available. The barmaids are scantily-clad and will do shots if you’re buying. It’s small. Twenty patrons and you’re facing standing room only. It’s dark. Very dark. Remember the scene in This is Spinal Tap when Nigel Tufnel is explaining how the band’s amplifiers go up to eleven? No? Here’s the clip:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=AhVWJgIzftE[/youtube]
Well if the Salty Dog has lights on dimmer switches, they go down to -1. “But why not make zero absolute black?â€
“Because our lights go darker.†That’s the Salty Dog in a nutshell. To be fair, the darkness probably is a benefit because the place is a pit. The barmaids will never be confused with those found at Hooters. Utter darkness and alcohol bring these beer matrons up to average at best. If the girls start looking good, it’s time to stop drinking and call for a ride because you’re in no shape to be doing anything let along operate a motor vehicle. At that point you’ve gone beyond beer goggles and slid all the way to being pronounced legally blind.
Needless to say, the Dog isn’t somewhere you aspire to go; it’s the place you end up. Back in the day I ended up there a lot. Were it not for nostalgic purposes (and being a glutton for punishment), I wouldn’t have been there Thursday. With a $1.50 beer in hand and two Detroit teams facing Cleveland teams (Cavaliers versus Pistons in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals and the Tigers visiting the Indians in a battle for the top spot in the AL Central) I settled in for an evening of drinking and sports watching.
Gary Sheffield was tossed for throwing the knob of his broken bat in the direction of the umpire. It took three teammates to keep a very-agitated Sheff from getting at the official. Considering their bench was already thin because of injuries to Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen, this doesn’t bode well for the Tigers.
Fifteen minutes later Antonio McDyess was dismissed to the showers for a flagrant foul on Cavalier forward Anderson Varejao. The biggest difference between the two instances is how Sheffield was ejected instantly (for seemingly nothing) while NBA officials debated tossing McDyess for almost two minutes before showing him to the door for what was a blatant violation. It was only the first quarter and the Pistons were down their best bench player. If Cavs pulled out a close road victory, this foul would loom large.
(And, of course, it did. King James led the Cavs to victory in overtime crushing the Pistons’ will so much they offered only meager resistance in Game 6 and lost the series. On the bright side, the Tigers split their four-game series by taking both games on Saturday and Sunday so the weekend wasn’t a total debacle for Detroiters.)
In the midst of my beer and sports orgy, I kept receiving calls from the wife. They were still sitting on the tarmac. My wife, her pregnant friend, a two year old and my eighteen month old daughter ended up sitting locked in a plane on a runway for three-and-a-half hours for a flight that normally takes less than two hours. I felt bad for not being there with them. Then the Tigers came up to bat and another beer was delivered so I forgot my family’s woes until the next phone call.
The bat signal also led to a few other phone calls serving to set Friday’s agenda. Beers at a local brewery at 11 am. Dinner with a hockey teammate. An invitation back to the Salty Dog for beers in-between. Friday was shaping up nicely if I decided to skip out of work.
This continued until around 11 pm. I opted to pull the pin on the evening so as to make a half-hearted attempt at going to work on Friday. Destination: home.
My brother works the afternoon shift and knew the wife was headed to New York so come midnight, he was on my doorstep. The Pistons loss was complete. The wife finally took off. My brother and I discussed our up-coming fantasy football league for the next three hours complete with a visit NFL.com for statistics and the creation of four Excel spreadsheets. It was the first week of June and we’re already getting prepared for fantasy football. (It’s because of moments like this one I’m glad to be married because if I were single, stuff like fantasy sports would absolutely own me.)
2:30 am – The wife and kid touched down at LaGuardia more than seven hours after I dropped them off at the airport. Thank you, Northwest Airlines.
3:00 am – My brother headed for his home though there was another phone call to discuss how our dedication to our fantasy league is bordering on a sickness.
3:30 am – My wife and daughter were safe in their hotel room in Manhattan. I was due at work in four hours and in another bar in less than eight. Day One was in the books and Day Two was looking promising.
Does Canon Fodder tickle your fancy? Keep checking in and passing it on to friends and family. Have a question or observation? E-mail me at jeff@canon-fodder.com.
Check back tomorrow and I’ll attempt to wrap the whole weekend that was.