Jon and I went to Sunday's day game. It was powerful hot and the sun scorched our tan muscular bodies. Our goal wasn't so much to cheer on the Padres, it was to stay alive. We brought six water bottles and they were consumed before the 3rd inning. My inner monologue consisted of the oft repeated phrase "just stay alive... at all costs, just stay alive".
So around the sixth inning we were approached by a concession guy. He walks up to Jon and hands him an ice cold fresh lemonade. It's the delicious kind that has the lemon wedges at the bottom. Jon refused the drink saying he hadn't ordered it. The concession guy grew impatient and thrust it into Jon's hand. He said that the lemonade had been "taken care of by the gentlemen over yonder".
He tipped his head in the direction of Jon's suitor. We looked over but just saw the Pad Squad and some random fans and didn't really know what was going on. I teased Jon that some guy had a crush on him.
Before I could properly make fun of Jon the concession guy was back and this time he was handing me a lemonade! Again it was assumed that it was a gift from the same gentlemen. Jon just started laughing hysterically.
We looked over again. We made eye contact with one of the Pad Squad dudes. He tilted his head, closed his eyes and bowed ever so slightly as if he was humbly taking credit for the refreshments.
We've seen him around, but we'd never talked to Pad Squad Andre before and had no idea that he knew us. We can only guess that he knows us through this blog, but really we don't know.
We called out our thanks to him for purchasing us such delightful drinks. He replied "you looked hot". Then ever so slightly he bit the corner of his lip. Was he talking about our body temperature or our bodies?
We sipped our refreshing lemonades and watched as the Pad Squad took the field and assaulted the crowd with squishy balls and t-shirts. Andre commanded the Pad Squad underlings to launch t-shirts into the crowd by posing and pointing towards the heavens. Jon swore he had seen statues posed similarly in his travels to Greece. Only those statues were depicting Greek Gods and had lacked the strength that we saw on display in front of us. We were blown away. Why was he so nice to us? Why would he buy us drinks? What was he expecting in return?
I'm always a little skeptical when people give me a gift. So I cautiously sipped it seeing if I could taste any Spanish Fly or GHB. I didn't want to wake up an hour later bound with give away t-shirts and gagged with a squishy ball in the secret Pad Squad room. They'd probably try to tickle me. I'm very ticklish.
Anyway, I didn't detect anything but sweet sugar and sour lemon. We think we made a new friend. When he came off the field he gave us all real hard high fives that left our hands stinging and then disappeared. The cold drink in one hand and the intense stinging in the other are the only proof that I wasn't dreaming or suffering from heat exhaustion.
We may never fully know what happened today and in some ways I think it's better that we don't.