March
2004 | Spring Training 2K4: Knockin on Heaven's
[Bathroom] Door
 People,
this is Dave's story, and I'm not going to pretend to be the one
most qualified to tell it. Just take a look at Lemon
Pie if you don't know what I mean. But,
since I'm all you have at the moment, and I was in fact present
on the scene, I shall proceed with what I witnessed...
It
was a Thursday in March, in the city of Surprise, Arizona. It's
day bazillion of the annual spring training vacation, and we're
here to see the Kansas City Royals vs. the Oakland A's in a pre-season
death match at Surprise Stadium.
We're
at the park an hour early or so, perfect timing for the daily round
of overpriced, recreational eating for which stadiums like Surprise
are made (I suppose they're for the baseball games too, but I'm
not really sure, since I spent the whole week with my nose in a
copy of Snow Falling on Cedars). Things look promising
at Surprise today, food-wise.
Oh,
who are we fooling here, we were just there the Sunday before. We
know exactly what's on the menu.
It's
sorely tempting to revisit the Mexican bento bowl option, as it
had been a culinary revelation the prior weekend— good portions,
not a hotdog. After little debate, a portion of our camp descends
upon the Mexi-bento stand, wads of $1's in hand. We will note here
for the record that Dave was among those partaking of the bento.
After
lunch, we lounge in the sun, listening to the exact same 70's rock
compilation blasting over the sound system as had blasted the prior
Sunday. What was it, Crazy Train? Aqualung? I can't recall (in a
related irony, we watched "Groundhog Day" that morning
at the hotel). In short order, it becomes clear that another questionable
food item is in our near future.
 Returning
to the food tent circus, a challenge is thrown down to Dave outside
of the Fry Bread tent: why doesn't he partake of that mother of
all ill-advised dessert items, the fried Twinkie, just to see what
they're like? Suspiciously, a little square of paper covers this
item's original price on the sign; it's now listed at $3. A fire
sale?
Is
there something we don't know?
Fried
Twinkies, if you weren't aware, are a trendy
fair food item of late. As the linked article describes them,
"Each Twinkie... is impaled on a stick and frozen until firm,
then dipped in a batter similar to that used to fry fish."
Mmm, fish.
Dave
takes the bait, and $3 changes hands. After a baptism in fish oil,
the former Hostess cake is handed over in a paper doily. It looks
like a corn dog.
Now,
you don't have to be a gastroenterologist to imagine what happens
next between that Twinkie and that bento, after a few beers and
a few hours in the sun. Things just may not have gone quite right
between the two, is probably the best way to explain it. A losing
game, if you will. The ride home in the car becomes a race against
time.
The
next morning, tiny dog wakes up to start the hotel coffee. Dave
comes down stairs from his room and hands over a haiku, hastily
scrawled on a scrap of hotel note paper— a cautionary tale,
in verse, about the prior day's events:
bento
bowl
and deep fried twinkie
colon cramp
emergency stinky
Let
this be a lesson to us all.
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