So I recently got a call from an old friend who happens to be a lifelong New York Mets fan. I like the Mets too, but I’m one or those unicorns that also like the Yankees. Generally speaking you’re either one of the other and the vast majority of Mets fans have contempt for the Yankees and vice-a-versa. Personally, I could never understand why you wouldn’t want to double your chances of winning. My friend thinks he can get tickets for the game that night. He wants to know if I’m in. It’s a beautiful day and like most, I whine internally that I’ve been caged for months like a wild covid animal, (poor me, right?) I “need” this. To further justify my decision, I rationalize that both of us have just received our 2nd vaccination, we have no problem wearing masks, we’ll social distance and act responsibly. I respond in the affirmative and begin dreaming of my escape from captivity. I’ll be driving as my friend is on the way to Shea Stadium (I refuse to call it Citi Field). We have dueling GPS systems and wind up driving through the Lincoln Tunnel crossing Manhattan at rush hour. There’s a bit of angst, but it could have been a lot worse, we’re staying positive. We arrive at the stadium and they have invoked a 25% max seating capacity at the stadium due to covid. Basically we can park anywhere we want. (Final attendance at the game was about 27 people) I was so giddy over our good fortune, I contemplated doing figure 8s in the parking lot. We park the car, and during the short walk to the stadium entrance, we’re on a natural high as we soak up the beautiful weather and take in the exciting vibe of being at a stadium. We’re thankful for the simple FREEDOM of just being able to get out, and do something non-virtual.
Dark Clouds Approach – We get on a very short line that leads to people taking your temperature and checking your covid vaccination card. As it turns out my friend and I are a couple of days away from the 14 day time span they require from your second vaccination. They won’t let us in. (Sadly I died, But I Lived! ~ Ice Age 3) We were instructed, if we still want to get into the stadium, we could walk over to a group of tents, pay $29.95 and get a rapid test, which is what we did. Nice people in the tents, but it did seem like this was their first rodeo. We needed to fill out an extensive form on our iPhones, without the use of reading glasses. (I’m not sure, but it could be I signed away my liver – joke’s on them.) We both finish our forms click submit and both are rejected. It seems we missed the “scheduled” time slot for our test by 2 minutes, being that we spent 20 minutes getting help on the forms. So we fill the forms out AGAIN. Very nice girl tells us that this time it should go a lot quicker being that we all learned something. I’m less than thrilled.
We now get our tests. As I see the 18 inch Q-tip coming at me I close my eyes over concern that I’ll actually witness the depth of insertion and lose the use of my legs. At one point I was pretty sure I felt the Q-tip scratching the top of my skull.
Test is done, now we wait 30 minutes for the results. They cut us a break; it only took 29 minutes to get our negative results. We emerge from the depths of the unwashed, walk back to the two knobs that rejected us and show them our clean bill of health. We’re admitted to the front gate and anticipate our grand entry into the stadium. I can almost hear the trumpets announcing us. My friend shows the security gate people two pieces of printer paper that have a bar code on them. The security people tell us, “We can’t accept these any more, go away.” At this point I figured I’m being punked. I’m expecting the crew from Candid Camera to coming walking out and we’ll all have a great laugh. That didn’t happen. After a commensurate amount of jawing, where we drove home the point that they wouldn’t be treating us this way if the Yankees were playing in the Bronx tonight, we were told to go to Window Three and see if someone can help.
Big surprise, Window Three is closed. Now I’m feeling like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where he’s left in the middle of a massive remote rental parking lot and there’s no car to be had. In desperation we hijack another window that was closed but the guy behind the window forgot to turn off his light. I caught his eye and wouldn’t let him go. We ask the guy if these tickets come with free beer, which was a negative, but we did get our tickets to enter the stadium.
Long story short, after being summarily thrown out of the Metro Grill two seconds after we entered, the Game was fun. It felt great to be in a stadium and pay $30 for a pair of beers. We sat wherever we wanted, I could have eaten peanuts off the top of Lindor’s head. And bonus - it wasn’t until the next day that I paid for my horrendously bad eating exhibition.
The Trip Home – We leave the parking lot as if we were the only people in the stadium, which wasn’t far from the truth. We go over a bridge or two and our plan is to go over the George Washington Bridge to get back to Jersey. We’re on the Cross Bronx Expressway when it comes to a complete stop. Not crawling (that’ll come later), a complete stop. Not what I need at 11PM on a school night. After about 25 minutes, traffic begins to crawl and as we eventually approach the GW, I notice no cars are coming in the opposite direction. (I’m wondering if I drove into a time warp and Chris Christie is still in office.) By the time we got to the Jersey border, the police were letting the traffic go in the NYC bound direction. It was like the mad rush when the whistle blows during the Polar Bear Plunge.
It’s now approaching midnight and I drop my friend off and head for home. I’m on Route 24 going about 65 mph when I see a large deer (maybe a jersey moose) in the middle of the highway. She’s to the left of me. I slow down as much as I can and as the saying goes, the deer freezes in the headlights. I take this to mean she’ll stand still and let me pass. I’m very close and still cruising at a good clip when at the last second the deer decides that running into the side of my car is the best course of action. I look in the rear view mirror and see her trotting off safely into woods. On the other hand, I will be looking to enhance the revenue stream of our local auto body shop.
Never forget, Freedom has a Price!
