the boys of summer
It's been a little quiet around here. I know. It's a little stark too. I'm planning on putting up a fresh coat of paint to make things a little more lively, but the ambiguity works for now, I guess.
Last Saturday, I went to go see my first Mets game in a couple years. I was meeting up with a couple friends who were arriving on the train. I'd gotten the subway before them, and I wanted to get their early to check out the new field, Citi Field, which will open in 2009.
It looked beautiful. It's going to be weird to watch the Mets play in their. Shea's kind of a dump, but it was home for so long. I have a lot of memories there (mostly bad...I've seen them lose a ton in that building), and it does have a kind of boxy charm to it. There's no fancy awnings or rotundas. The outfield doesn't have all the irregularities that have become so en vogue in the newer parks. Shea is just big and round and blue and symmetrical. And it has a giant light-up apple that pops out of a top hat when the Mets hit a home run. I love that thing. I'm happy they're bringing it over to the new place.
I walked around the exterior of Citi Field, which is almost entirely completed, and then tried to find a bodega to get a six pack to drink with my friends in the parking lot. I eventually ended up in a tiny shop inside a gas station that sold either giant cans of Foster or single 12 oz. cans of Bud. There was only one Foster left so I had to opt for the King of Beers.
I brought them up to the register, and the man behind the counter was clearly Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakhistani in origin. He seemed like a pleasant fellow and he had a robust, gray beard. I placed the beers down clumsily and went for my wallet. He smiled.
"No no no no," he said.
I was confused. Maybe I just didn't understand him.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"No no no no," he answered as he put the beers in a plastic bag and tied the loops in a knot.
"I'm sorry," I said. "How much are those?" I opened my wallet and looked up at him.
He said, "No. No," and pushed the bundle of beers toward me, smiling.
I grabbed the bag and thanked him and walked out.
I would never question free alcohol, so honestly, I don't care why he did it. Maybe ever 10th customer gets free Budweiser. That seems like a bad business practice, but maybe he's not in it for the money. Maybe he just wants to get Mets fans drunk. Maybe he was something of a mystic and realized, just by looking at me, that I've fallen on hard times. The money in my wallet was all I had for the weekend. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity. Even though I'm the pastiest Sicilian-Italian-American dude of all time, I have been mistook for an Iraqi, Egyptian and even Indian (not the American kind) on more than one occasion. This has happened even before I started wearing a beard, but now that I do, this has happened even more regularly; so regularly, that I'm thinking of changing my answers to future racial/ethnicity questions on future surveys and censuses. Maybe, he saw me as a kinsman, and as such, extended to me the hospitality he would have a relative. That's admirable, I think, that kind of selflessness, especially in the distribution of alcohol.
Like I said, I have no idea why, but it made my day--especially since the Mets got reamed --but I'm keeping the beard just in case.
Last Saturday, I went to go see my first Mets game in a couple years. I was meeting up with a couple friends who were arriving on the train. I'd gotten the subway before them, and I wanted to get their early to check out the new field, Citi Field, which will open in 2009.
It looked beautiful. It's going to be weird to watch the Mets play in their. Shea's kind of a dump, but it was home for so long. I have a lot of memories there (mostly bad...I've seen them lose a ton in that building), and it does have a kind of boxy charm to it. There's no fancy awnings or rotundas. The outfield doesn't have all the irregularities that have become so en vogue in the newer parks. Shea is just big and round and blue and symmetrical. And it has a giant light-up apple that pops out of a top hat when the Mets hit a home run. I love that thing. I'm happy they're bringing it over to the new place.
I walked around the exterior of Citi Field, which is almost entirely completed, and then tried to find a bodega to get a six pack to drink with my friends in the parking lot. I eventually ended up in a tiny shop inside a gas station that sold either giant cans of Foster or single 12 oz. cans of Bud. There was only one Foster left so I had to opt for the King of Beers.
I brought them up to the register, and the man behind the counter was clearly Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakhistani in origin. He seemed like a pleasant fellow and he had a robust, gray beard. I placed the beers down clumsily and went for my wallet. He smiled.
"No no no no," he said.
I was confused. Maybe I just didn't understand him.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"No no no no," he answered as he put the beers in a plastic bag and tied the loops in a knot.
"I'm sorry," I said. "How much are those?" I opened my wallet and looked up at him.
He said, "No. No," and pushed the bundle of beers toward me, smiling.
I grabbed the bag and thanked him and walked out.
I would never question free alcohol, so honestly, I don't care why he did it. Maybe ever 10th customer gets free Budweiser. That seems like a bad business practice, but maybe he's not in it for the money. Maybe he just wants to get Mets fans drunk. Maybe he was something of a mystic and realized, just by looking at me, that I've fallen on hard times. The money in my wallet was all I had for the weekend. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity. Even though I'm the pastiest Sicilian-Italian-American dude of all time, I have been mistook for an Iraqi, Egyptian and even Indian (not the American kind) on more than one occasion. This has happened even before I started wearing a beard, but now that I do, this has happened even more regularly; so regularly, that I'm thinking of changing my answers to future racial/ethnicity questions on future surveys and censuses. Maybe, he saw me as a kinsman, and as such, extended to me the hospitality he would have a relative. That's admirable, I think, that kind of selflessness, especially in the distribution of alcohol.
Like I said, I have no idea why, but it made my day--especially since the Mets got reamed --but I'm keeping the beard just in case.
1 comment:
Great.. Now you'll never shave the beard since it got you free beer! I still say you look Amish with it.
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