Ahhh Petco Park. How I've missed thee. I met jbox at the gate. He had our tickets. Premier Club seats! This should be good. We got through the gate just fine except I had to throw away my orange. You have to have fruit cut into quarters, otherwise it's too easy to chuck at people. We dipped our fingers in the waterfall, crossed ourselves and headed in. We just missed batting practice, but headed down towards the field anyway to see if we could spot anybody. Here's who we spotted first:
Holy Toledo! That's John Weisbarth! I glanced at jbox to see if I would have to keep him from doing something psycho.
"Look at Weisbarth there. You think I should yell something at him?"
"Probably not." Jbox then decided instead to take about two dozen photos from various angles of Weisbarth. Some close up. Some with the view in the background.
He paused for a second. "You think he notices us stalking him?"
I nodded. "One can only hope."
We headed back up to our seats.
Our tickets said premier club, but we probably had the worst "best" seats in the house. In the very back row, right next to the aisle. Anybody in our section or the section over who was returning to his or her seats, would block our view. It was a bummer at first, but turned out to be a blessing in disguise! How, you ask? Ironically... The Pad Squad.
Jbox notoriously dislikes the Pad Squad. I find them, for the most part, mildly annoying. That being said, when three of them happened to take a quick break while on patrol and stand near us, we quickly jumped at the chance to talk to them and take pictures. I didn't get the pictures on my camera, but jbox had his at ready and we got a nice one of all three of them with jbox. I recognized two of them as returning members, but it still took another second to register: The one with the walkie-talkie was Visor Girl! My favorite Pad Squad member!
I like Visor Girl because while some of the other Pad Squadders take on a stuck up look about them as they cheer, Visor Girl will, with all her heart, try to get you pumped up. She's also the one girl Pad Squadder who will seriously launch t-shirts with the launcher. And she does it with a hard look on her face. No smiles half the time. Just pure intensity. It's awesome.
She wasn't wearing a visor. I pointed at her and said, "Don't you usually wear a visor?"
She said, "Yeah. Sometimes."
I said, "You're my favorite Pad Squadder. You know why? 100% intensity. 100% of the time." She seemed surprised and flattered.
I thought they'd be moving on, but instead, they hung out for a bit.
"So you guys come to a lot of games?" We all nodded yes. I should say, jbox's buddy Kevin was with us. Not the Kev that posts here. A different Kev.
"Where are your seats?" We pointed in various directions as to where we could usually be found.
The brown haired one stuck out her hand "I'm Veronica." Wha? They were introducing themselves? They went down the line.
Visor girl said, "I'm Erica."
The new girl said, "I'm Shannon."
Jbox made a little half bow with a flourish. "Enchante," he said. Olive oil on a baby's butt: That's how smooth jbox is.
Veronica said, "You should take those pictures and put them on a website or something," which made jbox laugh nervously and a little too loud. His voice cracked, "Yeah! That'd be something. A website! Yeah!"
They left shortly after that, but not after each handing us a pocket schedule. Once they were gone, we giggled like 11 year old girls.
Jbox asked "OK which one do you want?"
I said, "I get Erica. She's my favorite."
Kevin said, "Cool. I liked Shannon best anyway."
Jbox said, "That's fine. I get Veronica. She's super cute!"
Perfect! Just then, I felt a burning sensation on my left hand. My wedding ring was glowing red, signalling to Jess that I had looked at another girl.
Jbox said, "Dex! Get that thing off! You're ruining everything! Jess can't know!"
But it was too late. The signal had been sent. My relationship with Visor Girl would have to remain as Fan and Pad Squadder. She did, however, give us her e-mail address so that we could send the photos. I think jbox is eager to get an interview.
I'll put impressions of the park in another post. This one's too long as it is.