Chapter 10: Ladies Love Cool Spams

In 1989, LL Cool J released the popular hit, "Jinglin' Baby" off of his smash hit CD "Walking With A Panther". I hadn't heard it in forever, but I remembered that the line that goes after "They're jinglin' baby!" is "Go ahead baby!" I mean, it's a pretty famous chorus from a pretty famous rap tune.

Spam Boy had never heard this tune before in his life.

One day, my buddy Ryan decides to hit him up with:

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Um, what?"

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's a song. You've never heard it before?"

"No."

"Yeah, when you hear somebody say 'They're jinglin' baby', you're supposed to say 'Go ahead baby'."

"Oh, okay."

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Go ahead, um, Ryan."

And it went on like this for weeks. And since he's a big fan of mine, of course my name got thrown into it.

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Go ahead Corbett."

Lovely.

Spam Boy's next foray into rap was when Ryan and I were getting nostalgic about some of the 80's rap we were familiar with, so I asked him if he could bring some in.

So Ryan brings in an assortment of tapes... one of which is Public Enemy's seminal work, "Fear of a Black Planet" and 4 different 2 Live Crew tapes. (I didn't realize they made more than 1.)

Now, if you don't remember, 2 Live Crew was absolutely filthy. They would even get arrested at their own shows for performing lewd sex acts on stage.

So they were pretty rough... especially for somebody who wasn't rap-friendly, like Spam Boy.

But Spam Boy had this equipment set up at home so that he could easily convert cassette tapes into CD's, so we asked him if he could please make us digital copies of the tapes in question. After badgering him about it for a while, he finally caved in and took the tapes.

When they aren't returned in a timely fashion, we begin to hound him for it and telling him how much he'd enjoy them if he actually listened to them.

"Come on, man. Give them a listen. They'll change your life. Especially that 2 Live Crew."

Months go by without mention of his progress on this front. Ryan decides to ask him again, but gets a confusing answer, leading him to believe that no movement has been made on that front.

"Is he really going to make the copies?" I asked.

"I don't know, dude." said Ryan.

After a few more months of no mentioning of the tapes, Ryan decides to ask for them back. Spam Boy pulls them out of his desk drawer. He had never taken them home! This lead us to believe that he was totally appalled at these tapes and ashamed to have them in his house. I wish we had fully addressed it with him, but it was just funny that they were still in the same paper bag in the same drawer in which they were when they were first given to him.

I guess he didn't think they were jinglin' after all.

Chapter 9: Best Buy calling, this is Tom Gavin -or- When Opportunity Knocks, It's Probably There To Kill You

One of our favorite pasttimes at work is pulling a good practical joke on somebody. Depending on how much time and energy we have to pull something off, the quality of the joke varies. There's a core of about 4 or 5 of us here that really like to get people going. As you read back in Chapter 2, we stole Spam Boy's scented candles after he had received numerous complaints that they were stinking up the whole room. That was on the lighter side... a small smash-and-grab job, if you will.

One time, when I was sitting across an aisle from this guy named Derrick, I went over to his cubicle after he had left work for the day, and I took everything from the left side of his cube and put it on the right side, and did the reverse with the right side. So, in the end, everything was discombobulated. I couldn't wait for him to come in the next day and notice that something was off but not being able to place what had happened. It came off flawlessly too, as he couldn't complain about anything missing... as everything was there... but it was just out of order somehow. Finally, I caved and explained what I had done. Thankfully, he was a good sport. Even more thankfully, he never tried to get me back. Even after I put "Caution" tape across the door to his cube, he still didn't retaliate. Although I hate to think it's why he decided not to work here anymore.

Of all the jokesters that we have in this place, the best one by far is my friend Justin. He and I together have pulled off some pretty funny pranks. One time, we got our mutual friend Becky by putting a transparency of a gorilla over her vanity mirror late one night in the hopes she'd see it while trying to put makeup on or something. Clearly knowing who was responsible, I arrived at my desk the next morning with a marshmallow Peeps on my desk with the words "Eat Me" written on it.

Justin and I pushed it even further when I found out that she was going to get her tattoo touched up at a local tattoo parlor after work. While the two of us were out in the lab, he dialed her up from outside, and put on his best fake voice:

"Hello. I was calling to confirm your 5pm appointment for a tattoo touch-up.", said Justin.

"Yes. That's correct."

"I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I might be a little late for the appointment."

"Okay."

"You see, I'm going to be out drinking before-hand, and I'm not sure I'll make the appointment on time."

"Where are you going to be???"

"Herman's, on East Street. You're welcome to join me. I'm going to get pretty hammered."

"Wait, you're going to get drunk and work on my tattoo???"

"Oh yeah, it's no big deal. I've done it many times before."

"And you think that's okay???"

At this point, Justin started to break down a laugh a little bit, and Becky got tipped off that it was a prank. But for a good few minutes there, he totally had her going. It was something to behold.

It was that moment that got us all inspired. If he could get Becky going the way he did, what would happen if we tried to pull something similar on Spam Boy.

Well, the opportunity presented itself in the form of an altercation between SB and Best Buy on the telephone in the cube next to mine. Apparently SB's parents had bought a brand new computer there, with all of the trappings that come with it, i.e. a monitor, printer, etc. They had paid in full for the entire bundle, but at the time of purchase, the printer that came with it was not available. For the purposes of completing the sale, they were promptly granted a rain check and told to pick it up when it became available.

When they showed up some time later to obtain the printer, the salesperson made a mistake and charged them for the cost of the printer. SB's parents, being amicable enough, decided to just pay for it and get it home and sort the whole thing out later. SB, not being so amicable, decided to call up Best Buy on the phone and tear them a new one. (Not that I blame him as they were totally in the wrong.) After much back-and-forth (and I really really wish I remembered the dialog), he finally was able to communicate the full story to them and they agreed to refund the money spent on the printer.

I remember the funniest thing about this phone call being the volume at which he spoke. See, here in "cubicle city", everybody can hear you talking on the phone, so you better choose your dialog wisely. When he amped it up to the level that he did, the entire office could hear it. And when he spoke at that level, he sounded vaguely reminiscent of that famous Jim Mora interview (then coach of the Indianapolis Colts) when he simply shrieked:

"Playoffs??? Don't talk about playoffs??? You kidding me??? Playoffs???"

As a matter of fact, for months after that memorable phone call, that was our impression of him around the office and every time his voice level broke that barrier, we would recite it to him.

But all of this gave us one hell of an idea for a prank call. We would call him representing Best Buy customer service and apologize to him for the way he was treated on the phone.

Next we had to script it up.

Justin and I sat down and wrote up an outline of a script that he could run with should we be able to get an unsuspecting Spam Boy on the phone.

By the time we hit the empty conference room and dialed the number, we were ready to roll:

"Hi, is this Andy Wallen (intentionally mispronounced)? I’m Tom Gavin, from Best Buy corporate headquarters, customer service division. I was calling to follow up on an order you placed for a home computer."

"I didn't place an order for a computer."

"Well, it says here that you did."

"Nope, it wasn't me."

"My apologies."

It had seemed like we were foiled. He didn't take the bait. I urged Justin to call again and give it another try.

"Hello, Mr. Wolan? This is Tom Gavin again. I just looked at the paperwork again.... was it your parents that bought a computer recently?"

"Oh yeah... as a matter of fact, I thought after I hung up that maybe that's what you were asking about."

"Oh, okay. Now it says here that you had some trouble with our customer service department the last time you talked to them. Is that true?"

"Yes it is."

"I understand there was a problem with the printer not being bundled in with the computer."

"You see, my parents bought this computer at your store and at the time they didn't have the printer in stock so they were told to come pick it up at a later date and when they did, they were charged for it...."

"Yes, I see that written down right here. Hey, Andy... that's a nice name... I have a drinking buddy named Andy."

"Um... thank you."

"Now, where did you purchase this computer?"

"At your Springfield location."

"I heard you were rude to the last sales associate you talked to."

"What???"

"It says right here that you were rude to our customer service representative."

"But he was rude to me!!!"

"I want you to know that we’ve since fired that person."

"Oh... really? It wasn't my intention to get anybody to get fired over this."

"We take these complaints very seriously and wanted to know what you thought we could do to improve customer relations... if I could have a few moments of your time, would you be willing to answer a few questions for me?"

"Sure."

"What's your marital status?"

"I'm single."

(During this time, I'm typing on the keyboard of the computer in the conference room, making it sound like "Tom" is actually taking down the information.)

"And what's your Social Security number?"

"What??? I'm not going to give that out!"

"Sir, please. It's a pretty standard part of our customer surveys."

"I don't feel comfortable giving that out."

"Okay. We'll just move on."

"What was the make and model of that printer?"

"Hewlett Packard (blah blah blah)."

"Great! And how often do you go to Best Buy?"

"Fairly often."

"Well, in order to compensate you for this misunderstanding, we will be mailing out to you a Best Buy gift card that you could use for the holidays. Can I have your address?"

"Sure, it's (blah blah blah blah blah)."

"Okay, Mr. Wolan... thanks for shopping at Best Buy...."

"Wait."

"What is it?"

"Before you let me go, I have something I wanted to talk to you guys about...."

(At this point, me and our friend Ryan are just about on the floor laughing.)

"Okay."

"Last time I was there, I picked myself up a video game for my PC called (blah blah blah). When I brought it home, it wouldn't play on my machine. When I went to return it, they told me they couldn't take it back, because the packaging had been opened and they practically accused me of pirating the software."

"Well, I'm sorry to say that that's our standard procedure. We've had a lot of trouble with people buying games, ripping a copy, and then returning them for store credit. I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do."

"Okay."

"Have you tried that new game, "Doom 3"? I hear it's really good."

"Oh yeah!!! (disposition changing) As a matter of fact, that's the game I was trying to exchange this one for."

"Well, you should definitely get it... I hear good things."

"Well, I did end up getting it anyway. It is really good."

"Well, great... is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Nope, that's it."

"Have a great evening then!"

"Thanks!"

(Click)

We all look around the room at each other.

"What just happened there?", I said. "Did he really just fall for that prank call hook, line, and sinker, and then keep you on the phone to talk about another problem he was having???"

We all laugh out loud.

Walking out of the conference room together, we decide to split up to not look so obvious. As I'm heading back to my cubicle, I can see Spam Boy making a bee-line to my area.

This is going to be good.

"Hey Mike, remember when I had that whole situation with Best Buy and my parents' computer?"

"Oh yeah, I think I remember you saying something about that."

"Well, I think they're out to get me."

"What??? What do you mean?"

"Well, I just got this wierd phone call from them saying that they fired the guy that gave me a hard time.... it didn't seem like a real phone call though... I think it's that guy they fired... I think he's out to get me."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He told me that they were sorry for the mixup and that they fired the guy responsible and that they were going to send me a Best Buy gift certificate."

"And somehow from that you pieced together that somebody out there is out to kill you."

"I don't know, but I'm worried. They asked wierd questions like what my Social Security number is, and I told them I didn't want to give it out."

"Yeah... but still. Every company I talk to on the phone wants to know something stupid like that. I don't think it's THAT suprising that they did that."

"I'm going to trace the call. I'm going to go down to security and have them trace the call."

"Hold on... you're being irrational. I'm sure it's fine. It sounds from what you're saying that it's pretty harmless. I don't know how you extrapolated from that that somebody is out to kill you."

(Spam Boy leaves, my two accomplises show up.)

"Holy shit, dude.", said Justin. "That guy is off his rocker."

"I know... did you hear all that?", I said. "He thinks somebody is out to kill him. He says he's going to have the call traced."

"He's not going to do that.", said Justin.

"I don't know, man... he seems pretty wound up about it."

"Nah. He's not going to do it."

"Well, either way", I said, "we better try to get him calmed down when he comes back."

(Spam Boy comes back 5 minutes later.)

"I just talked to my parents.", said Spam Boy, "and they hadn't heard anything from Best Buy regarding this incident. I think I'm going to have to find a place to stay for the night."

"Do you really think this guy is stalking you?", I asked.

"Yeah, well they asked for my address to send the gift card to."

"I'm sure it's fine.", I said again. "I bet you'll just get your gift certificate in the mail, and you'll be able to look back on this and laugh."

"Maybe. We'll see."

(Spam Boy leaves again.)

At this point, I'm feeling totally guilty that he feels this way, and I'm even at the point where I'm thinking I would personally buy a Best Buy gift certificate and send it to him in the mail just to calm him down. That's when Justin comes up with this idea:

"I have an already used Best Buy gift certificate at home. I'm gonna send him that one, and when he tries to use it, they'll reject it at the register."

(Uproarious laughter.)

I then quickly sober up after I think about it for a second.

"Do you really think that's a good idea? This kid's about to go nuclear now, and if that happened to him, I think he would absolutely pop."

"I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway."

"Fine man, but you have to deal with the fallout."

Justin never sent him that card, and eventually all the fuss from that call settled down. But it's absolutely outrageous to think that he translated Best Buy trying to do him a solid into "somebody is trying to kill me". But that's the way he thinks. And that's what made it so funny.

And that's why pulling a prank such as that on him was akin to shooting fish in a barrel.

Chapter 8: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

I could probably get in some trouble for saying this, but I work at a place that requires us all to have security clearances. A select few of us, if we are working on a more sensitive project, require a Top Secret clearance in order to be allowed access to the information and materials involved.

I'm happy to say that I am not in the situation of needing such a clearance, as all of the projects that I have worked on to date have not been classified as such. It's not that I don't enjoy that type of work or the prospect of doing something really neat, but it's that damn lie-detector test that you have to take in order to get your TS clearance.

Now, I really don't have anything of significance to hide. I've led a pretty uneventful life in terms of things that they would care about on a polygraph test. But the premise of being hooked up to one of those machines, with all of the tubes and wires coming off of you, while sweating your balls off and being interrogated about your background.... I'd confess to just about anything if it meant not failing the exam.

But never in a million years would I expect to hear the exam proctor ask me, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Guess who got a phone call to come in and take their polygraph exam. Now guess who got asked that very question.

It came to be that somehow, some way, Spam Boy got tapped to work on a TS project and required the mandatory background investigation and polygraph test that goes along with it. Despite what I've written about him to this point, about him being absolutely nuts, he's still a regular ol' law-abiding citizen.

I mean, unless it's somehow illegal to eat about 100 consecutive meals at Subway or attend Polish Debutante balls.

But seriously, this guy was clean. Going into the polygraph exam, he should have had very little to worry about, unless you count the generic "fear of God" that can be put into you by the tester.

Now from this point on in the story, I'm depending solely on Spam Boy's recollection of what transpired. I have no evidence of any of this (man, I wish I could snag a transcript), except that he told me this story directly, and what happened afterwards seemed to corroborate it.

I guess there came a time in the polygraph exam where the examiner asked SB if he had ever been involved in any illegal activity. I have a hard time believing they would ask such an open-ended question, but since I've never done one of these myself, I have not choice but to believe it. After originally responding with a "no, ma'am", she decided to put the pressure on him a bit.

"You're hiding something.", she said.

"No.", he replied.

"I can tell. It seems like you're holding something back."

"Okay, okay, fine... I emulate Nintendo games on my PC."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I've got it set up so that I can play Nintendo games on my PC."

"I don't care about that. Is that all?"

"Yes."

Hilarious. If you read "Chapter 3: Emulation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery", you know how funny his whole history of emulating Sonic the Hedgehog on his computer was. Having to confess it to a polygraph examiner? That's high comedy.

But it gets better.

Later on in the examination, Spam Boy was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the polygraph set up. Maybe the tubes or the wiring were connected too tight, or maybe the length of the affiar was starting to wear him out, but for whatever reason, SB starting getting pale.

"I don't feel so good.", he said.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't feel my arm."

"What? Just try to relax."

"Seriously, I don't know what's happening to me."

"You look white as a ghost."

"I think something's wrong."

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

And that's when the exam reached epic proportions. When the proctor has to stop the procedure, disconnect you from all of the equipment, and ask you what the hell is the matter with you, it's typically not a good sign. The fortunate part is that it's expected that you might fail an exam or two prior to actually passing. I imagine they must realize how stressful it is to take such an exam, even if you don't have a checkered past. So when you do fail, they simply schedule another appointment with you, and you come in and do it again.

I tried to calm SB down with that very thought.

"Well, they'll just call you up and you'll do it again."

He got a call that very day. It was Tuesday, and he had just failed for the first time the day before, on Monday. I guess they were in a rush to expedite his clearance (not sure why), so they left him a message on his voice mail asking if he could come back that coming Friday.

The other issue at play here is that the exams were being performed on the other side of the state, in the Boston area. In order to accomodate an early-morning exam, he had to go out there and stay in a hotel the night before. Now they were asking him to do it again the same week. This was surely going to put a crimp in his work time for the week, as well as the initial money out of pocket to pay for another hotel room.

After thinking this over, he decided to return the examiner's phone call.

While he didn't get her in person, he was able to leave her a message on her cell phone. I could hear it from my cubicle. It went something like this:

"Hello, this is Andy Wolan returning your call. I don't think I'll be able to do it on Friday morning, but what about Thursday at around 6pm? Call me back and let me know what you think. Thanks. Bye."

Surely, I had to address this time change with him.

"Did you seriously just ask her to do it at dinner time on Thursday? What do you think she's going to say to that?"

And then playing to his fear of well, just about everything....

"What if she thinks you're asking her out on a date?"

"No! Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, you did set it up for dinner time on Thursday. I hope she doesn't get the wrong idea."

"I'll call her back."

So he gave her another call and told her that he couldn't do Friday and could they please schedule another time. This time, he left out the reference to Thursday night.

She came back with, "It has to be this Friday or not at all. I'm terribly busy and we need to get this done."

So, when Spam Boy didn't show up on Friday for the exam, he was promptly denied clearance and became the first person that we know of to outright get denied due to a failed exam.

Figures.

Chapter 7: The One About the Bomb Shelter

I have decided to depart from the usual formula here and use this space to throw in a quick-hitter story. This is simply because sometimes there's just brief exchanges with Spam Boy that I don't want to forget about 'and dont want to have to take the time to craft a whole story around.

As my parents live in Connecticut, my wife and I often make trips through the Springfield, Massachusetts area.

I mentioned this to Spam Boy in passing and he explained to me that his parents live there and that he often goes and visits them on the weekends.

In the course of the conversation, he suggests to me that the next time I'm passing through I should stop by and visit him at his parents so that I could see their bomb shelter.

Dead silence.

Fearing for my safety and well-being, and the fact that I might mysteriously turn up missing, I politely turned down the offer... and never mentioned my travel itinerary again.

Chapter 6: The 2004 Avengers, Part 2: 12 Corbett Reports, 4 Victories

Every time I run into Spam Boy in the hallways at work, he never fails to greet me with his standard "Corbett Report! Corbett Report!" In a way, it's become disturbingly comfortable in its predictability. It's kinda like that routine head-nod that you come to expect every day from those people around the workplace you barely know with that "I'm pretty sure that dude works here..." glare.

But nevertheless, that was my standard greeting from Spam Boy. And if that seems a little off to you, believe me, it is.

One time, while sitting in my cubicle minding my own business, I couldn't help but hear what sounded like a rhythmic chanting coming from the cubicle next to mine. It was quite faint, so I took my headphones off (I hadn't started listening to anything yet), and concentrated on the sound until I realized that he was saying "Corbett Report" over and over to himself. Now, if he was saying it for my benefit to give me a hard time, that would be one thing. But no, he was simply just saying it to himself repeatedly... and rocking, as I discovered, as I paid a visit to see what was the matter.

"You do of course realize that you need help, right?", I asked.

"Yep", he replied. "I just love the Corbett Report."

And all I had done was write these shitty articles for his website. And when I say shitty, I don't mean they were of poor quality, as if I didn't put any effort in. But I never went to any games. As was my pledge to begin with, I never attended and never played throughout the course of the season. (Well, except for that one time, but we'll get into that later... maybe, if I care). Instead, I just read the game summaries off the site and ginned something up myself. Sometimes I would add in what I did on a given night just to punch up the story a little bit. Take this Game 4 report for example:

"I would have to say my fondest memory from last night's game was when I was at home watching "Next Action Star" on NBC and seeing that big fat guy roll around on the stage. Priceless. Since I don't go to the games, I'm forced to have an opinion about them based solely on the summaries that Captain Wolan posts on his site. I think the best thing was that picture of Wolan in an empty dugout after the game... well, it was the best thing until I realized he set the timer on his camera and posed for his own picture. That is so bush-league. I also read that the pitching and defense was good, which surely must explain why the other team scored 15 runs and the mercy rule was invoked. Ouch. Well, I guess my advice is to suck it up, buck it up, and tear it up next time. Assuming you can interpret the batting order and fielding assignments."

Seriously, what kind of guy poses himself for pictures in an empty dugout? Nobody else I know of in the rehab clinic. Similarly, the following was sumitted after a big Game 5 win:

"So, I didn't even get a game summary to read today to even attempt to put together another hard-hitting edition of the Corbett report. If this keeps up, I'm going to be reduced to reviewing what I watched on television last night while you all were playing. (If you haven't watched Last Comic Standing yet, you should. It's hilarious!) Nevertheless, I heard that the team won last night, and in the words of Chris Farley "La dee frickin' da!" Although I hear one of the members of the team, who shall remain Andy Wolan, decided to pick up the game ball and run a victory lap on the field as if he was Cal Ripken playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. Again, that move is so bush-league. I'm going to have to start awarding "bush-league points" as I see fit based on what I hear after each game. I'd like to thank Becky for providing pictures from the game... at least I get to see the game all laid out in pictures. Anywho, good luck in your next game. I hear Julieano Quality Services is pretty tough."

It didn't take me long before I came to one jaw-dropping conclusion.... Spam Boy is a menace to softball, and probably society as a whole. I mean, he ran a victory lap around the entire field after a softball game! In front of everybody no less!!

Which led me to the title of my next missive:

"Officially or Unofficially, Wolan is Touched in the Head"

It went downhill from there. What followed was commentary on how players from other teams made fun of him by saying things like, "He is not normal!". Couldn't have said it better myself. Also, another opposing player mentioned that they “wanted what he was having". It's called crack... you can get it just about anywhere if you look hard enough.

There's even a story about how one even tried to take his head off a few times by purposely hitting line drives right at him. To show his disgust, Spam Boy refused to shake his hand after the game and was called a "faggot" by the opposing player. The next morning, SB wrote a scathing article about that young lad and his lack of sportsmanship that was full of caustic remarks. And to think that those two had never even met before that game!

Also, it should be noted that the opposing captain was insulting one of the female players on SB's team for striking out, and while he stepped in to defend her honor, what resulted was pure comedy. This is a direct quote from SB himself, followed by my commentary:

"It’s one thing for someone to cheer the strike-out of a heavy hitter on the other team. Heck, any male batter for that matter. Cheering the strike-out of a female batter that can’t hit is like trying to rub it in to a guy with no legs that you are a better running [sic]. In the second with Rochelle at bat, Rochelle struck-out. This was followed by screams and cheers from a fielder in the JQS outfield. Trying to co-relate [sic] the strike-out of one of GD-A's most unskilled female batters to a strike-out of Manny Ramirez in the bottom of the ninth to win the ball game is uncalled for." Talk about damning somebody with faint praise. I nearly fell out of my seat on that one. The whole "you guys suck for laughing at our shitty batter" angle was just too much. Although it's still not cool. Funny, but not cool.

There were his many documented spats with umpires where he would have arguments over where the strike zone was or interpreting the "intentional walk" rule of co-ed softball whereas if a male player who is hitting in front of a female player is walked, he automatically gets second base in order to punish the pitcher for only wanting to pitch to the female players. Seems tame enough until you read that after one game the umpire refused to shake Spam Boy's hand. He of course took it hard and wrote about it in his game summary the following morning. I on the other hand, found it to be hilariously funny. Take this excerpt for example:

"Did I hear right that the umpire refused to shake Andy's hand after he refused to call the third game off? What is it with Andy's string of "handshaking incidents"? This post-game handshaking tradition is turning into something that might cause post-traumatic stress syndrome. I feel like I need to start shaking his hand at work so that he won't end up needing countless hours of therapy to get over the fact that not everybody is out to get him."

So there was that.

Oh, and he invited his parents to come to one of his games from all the way in Springfield... on their anniversary. Which leads me to blurt out an audible... "who does that???".

Even the post game celebrations didn't always go as planned. Apparently there was a clubhouse nestled in the middle of the softball complex that served alcoholic beverages. Now, after a tiring game or two of softball, that clubhouse beer can come in pretty handy to take that edge off. But getting absolutely bombed after only 1??? Unless I hadn't eaten in like 48 hours, I can't imagine getting drunk off of one beer. Guess who did though:

"I didn't see anything about that [partying] in the game summary. Just some pictures of some of the team members in the "clubhouse" having some beers, and a report that Wolan was "hammered" after only 1 beer. What kind of nancy-boy crap is that? Anytime the floor seems "uneven" after 1 beer, you've got to scratch your ass and ponder."

But the socialization must have been a good thing for the captain, as he started to date the catcher on his team, let's call her "Jason Varitek" to be safe. When I caught wind of this, I wrote the following:

"And lastly, and most importantly, I hear rumors about a possible love interest on the team. Is this true? Is it destined in the stars for two of the Avengers to put aside their batting statistics and make a match? Am I talking out of my sphincter? Is love really in the air?"

Speaking of which, there's a funny side-story there. I guess sometime during the summer of 2004, Spam Boy and "Jason Varitek" went to Tanglewood with "Jason Varitek's parents" to see a concert. During the show, Spam Boy decided to drag "Jason Varitek" up off of her feet and attempt to dance around with her in the audience. Now "Jason Varitek's dad" who happened to be a pharmacist caught a glimpse of this and blurted out, "You know, there's something I could probably prescribe for you for that!" Priceless!

They broke up soon after attending a Red Sox game together where the two of them got lost in Dorchester of all places on the way home from the park and Spam Boy really had to go to the bathroom and "Jason Varitek" didn't want to stop. (Can't say that I blame her.) It got to the point where she almost ditched him at the Natick rest stop to head home by herself.

So it was a season to remember. I season that I didn't really get a chance to experience first-hand, but I got to laugh heartily at nonetheless. It was a comedy of errors, both on and off the field, and I think that when all was said and done, there were restraining orders involved. The softball season may not have made my social calendar in the summer of 2004, but it made my morning every morning to continuously hear about the "incident" the night before.. and write about it.

It was thus that the season ended... 4 wins, 8 losses, and 12, count 'em, 12 Corbett Reports.