Buy Me Some Peanuts and Low-Grade Muscle Relaxants

Ladies of Vancouver, we need to talk. I have just come from watching the Vancouver Canadians play the Tri-City Dusters (I can't keep track of whether they're single A or double A, but they played like a Rhet 105 A- [read: C+]) and quite a few of you ladies need a lesson in Single A Baseball Date Etiquette.

I realize the irony of this, seeing as how I was hanging with my parents on a Saturday night and they were on a date. Also, the whole "going on dates" thing: not my forte. Given that one of the last true dates I was on (as opposed to "let's hang out and I'll spend the next 4 hours rehashing every innuendo and eyebrow wiggle trying to determine whether it was, in fact, a date") involved a guy who forgot his wallet but remembered to bring some porn, then got mad at me when I called it porn since it was apparently "erotic art" (true story).....let's just say that I'm in no position to be giving advice.

But I do know this: when you go to a baseball game, you need to check your sequins at the door. Also, your stilettos, short-short overalls, leopard-print tights, and those decorative scarves. At the club: fine. When you're at a venue where your sole job is to shove beer and fried dough rolled in sugar in your face: no. Incorrect. And this brings me to food. Nat Bailey Stadium not only features the usual hot dog, hamburger, cotton candy deliciousness, but also brown rice vegetable sushi. Wrong. Fail. What is the purpose of going to a Single A baseball game (because it sure as hell isn't the baseball) if you're not going to sweat onions and nitrates out of your pores for weeks to come? If you don't plan to pump yourself full of salt, beer, sugar and fat, then you need to stay home doing Wii Yoga. (You can expect a "why don't my skinny jeans fit?" rant in 5...4...3...2...)

Rant aside, the game was pretty fun. I like doing the wave, dancing the Chicken Dance during the middle of the sixth (Note to S: you better have the Chicken Dance at your wedding), and watching men dressed up as pieces of sushi race around the diamond (it's a Vancouver thing). What I don't like, however, are the seats. One of the reasons I chose to go to the baseball game was to practice sitting, since I'm going to be on an airplane soon. The math, however, just doesn't add up: hard, low metal seats + no leg room + long legs + knobby spine that gets bruised if you don't sit on something double or triple padded = leaving at the bottom of the sixth. (Although my mom was right when she pointed out that a baseball is the only place you can lug around a heavy cushion without drawing stares). It wasn't long before I was sitting sideways to avoid a bruised back, which caused muscle spasms all up my back, which caused me to O.D. on mini donuts, though, ok, I would have done that anyways.

I, however, will do pretty much anything for mini donuts, so it was worth it. I have learned a valuable lesson for the airplane: bring a dazzling array of painkillers. And maybe some of those little Sour Patch Kids things.