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December 12, 2003
Random events from the past
Random events from the past week:
1) The Yankees lost Andy Pettite. I couldn't be chortling louder over this one. Don't get me wrong; I think Pettite is overrated. He's good, but not great - pitching for the 1994-2003 Yankees, *I* could have won 100 games, and my fastball topped out around 68-70 even when I was in shape and playing ball (it'd probably clock in around 40 right now). I think the Astros overpaid, and Pettite will win 13-14 with a 4.40 ERA in the National League this year.
That said, the Yankees - and especially George Steinbrenner - have egg all over the smug New York faces this week. The day after the World Series, they announced that re-signing Pettite was their top off-season priority. With Clemens retiring, the whole world knew that Pettite's return was critical. And they didn't get him. Georgie Porgie never liked Pettite, and he completely ignored his top left handed pitcher while wining and dining the likes of Felix Heredia and Paul Quantrill. Georgie never showed the love, Pettite is gone, and now the walking case study for Ritalin that is the New York media is frothing at the mouth. The hacks who write for the tabloids and the talk radio buffoons are all in a tizzy about how badly Steinbrenner has screwed up. Even New York is turning on Steinbrenner now, though that's not really a surprise. This town is the most ridiculously blatant group of front runners I have ever seen, and they truly feel entitled to the best team just because they're New York... and when anything happens and they DON'T win, the whole area - which proclaims to LOVE their Yankees - turns on the team with the speed and wrath of a rattlesnake. After the Twins won ONE GAME in this year's ALDS, you should have heard the hue and cry... you'd think the Yankees had just gone 58-104, for all the crying that was done.
And it's great. This city, these fans, and this team are watching a dynasty crumble in front of their very eyes, due to the megalomaniacal delusion of Steinbrenner's that he knows baseball better than any of his staff. He's bringing in such model citizens as Gary Sheffield and Kevin Brown.... yeah right, because noted clubhouse cancers are just what you need in a town full of front runner fans and a drooling, snarling, rabid sports media. Steinbrenner has let his giant ego get in the way, and as a result he is taking a wrecking ball to everything he's bought - I mean, built - over the last ten years.
I love it. Even if the Sox don't win next year, I still love it.
2) My friend Mike was in a very serious car accident Thursday. He's lucky; he walked away without a scratch. His car, however, was killed instantly.
We had a serious rainstorm that morning, and combined with the melting snow from last week's blizzard, there was lots of flooding in this whole area - including an infamous stretch on the Saw Mill River Parkway. There's a bend in the road that runs through a low lying area - it's basically swamp, with reeds and muck right off the parkway. That bend in the road is routinely the site of accidents - in good weather and bad, whether due to slipperyness or some moron who doesn't know how to drive having taken the bend too sharply or too fast. About once every two or three weeks, there is a good old fashioned traffic jam as emergency personnel clean up after one of these jokers, and my commute to work goes from 40 minutes to 90 minutes or longer.
One of the reasons Mike & I get along so well is that we share a cynical streak and an utter lack of ability to suffer fools gladly. Both of us have the same reaction when these traffic tie ups occur. Our first thought is, "You'd BETTER be dead up there!" If someone's had an accident and is delaying me getting to work, they darn well better be on their way to discuss the incident with God's insurance agent. Neither of us have any patience for the idiots who a) don't know how to drive fast but do it anyway, or worse yet b) FEAR driving fast and so they take that bend so slowly that they become a danger to other cars traveling a sensible speed. If we finally reach the scene of that accident and it's only a minor one, or there don't seem to be major injuries, we'll both start swearing up a storm and calling the idiots names and loudly wishing them a sexual experience with themselves. Like I said, patience may be a virtue, but not for either of us.
Since Mike and I travel the same road to work, whenever there's one of these aforementioned jams, whichever of us reaches it first will call the other to warn him of the delay. We then usually spend about 10 frustrated minutes sitting in stop and go traffic and cursing the descendents of those who had the audacity to delay our commute. (I never have figured out why we're in such a hurry just to go to the OFFICE. I'll have to ponder that another day.)
I have a confession to make, though. Mike drives like he's possessed by the spirit of Dale Earnhardt. He's insane. He's a maniac. The speed limit on that road is 50, due to the many bends and winding turns as it weaves through Westchester County. That limit is too slow; the road can be easily and safely traversed at 70, or even 75... which is the speed I usually go. Mike, on the other hand, pushes 90 on that road. His own wife refuses to drive that road with him. And I have to admit, every time I get to a traffic jam on that road that he hasn't called to warn me about, I begin to worry. Here's my confession: I don't just call to warn him about traffic; I'm also calling to see if he answers the phone. I keep expecting that one of these days, I'm going to be stuck in traffic, cursing at whatever SOB has made me late for my first meeting, and I'll look beyond the flares and into the swamp only to see whatever's left of Mike's car laying in a crumpled, twisted heap, the jaws of life standing nearby. I joke with him about it, but it's been an honest back-of-mind concern.
So it shouldn't have caught me off guard on Thursday morning when he called me to warn me of the traffic on the Saw Mill. When I thanked him for the warning and mentioned an alternate route I could take, he laughed and said that I would have to come up the Saw Mill anyway, because he was the idiot this time and I needed to pick him up. I laughed and asked how bad it was, and he said, "the car's totalled."
That was the one moment of the whole story that wasn't funny. The car was TOTALLED? In that moment, I remembered another thing that Mike and I have in common - we could be laying in a ditch with one arm and one leg severed and twitching on the ground beside us, and we'd each say, "I'm all right." And for a split second, I worried. Friends like Mike, his wife Jenn, our friend Tim and his wife Donna are frankly about the ONLY things that make New York even remotely bearable for me; they have become my adoptive second families up here in this place, and I guess I have that same accordant protective reaction to them now too. Suddenly I was sure that even though Mike was calling to warn me of traffic, and even though he was joking, he was really also calling to see if I'd stop and look for his left leg somewhere along the shoulder.
Thankfully, he really did escape without a scratch, amazingly. I picked him up and drove him back home, and heard him tell the story of how he'd been driving slower than usual because of the weather, saw another accident in the lane in front of him, swerved to avoid it and hyrdoplaned... hit the concrete barriers in the center of the road... and I kept thinking, "Mike, I *WANT* to believe that you were really only driving 45, man... I really do. But I've *seen* you drive this road. Many times. Do you REALLY expect me to believe that you were only doing 45? (Before you chastise me for not wholly believing my friend, a note in my defense: the cop on scene didn't believe him either!)
Anyway, the funniest part of the story is that about a half dozen people from the office actually drove PAST Mike that morning and saw the aftermath accident... and not realizing it was Mike, they kept right on driving. He stood on the side of the road, his car totalled, in a torrential rain, while standing in what is already a swamp even in dry weather... with his co-workers zipping right on by. In the meantime, he's got a rental car for now, and the insurance company seems to agree with his initial assessment that the car's beyond saving. So - a close call notwithstanding, we came out of Thursday none the worse for wear - and with a whole new incident to give Mike hell over.
3) Irony likes to pay the occasional unannounced visit to my life. (I could fill pages with examples if you really want me to.) So I should not have been surprised this week. Last month, a colleague poked her head into my office and said, "We're going down to the cafeteria, they're giving flu shots today. Want to join us?" I responded that I had too much work to do, had a deadline, and couldn't make the time - I'd pass. So what happens? Late this week, I got the flu. I mean, I *GOT* the *FLU.* Ten rounds with Tyson flu. Hit by a mack truck flu. Put me in the pine box now and close the lid when you leave flu.
If you haven't already done so, you've GOTTA get yourself a flu shot. You'll be sorry if you don't. And if you think you didn't have time to go get the shot, wait till you find out how much work you're going to miss when this bug hits you.
