One week ago at this time, I was in Decatur, IL, the soybean capital of the world (I kid you not). What brought me to such a corny, open place was the wedding of a good friend, a man in whose companionship I had the privilege of spending almost all my primary education. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was a hoot, and the company I met were super friendly and engaging. All told, mission accomplished.
Of course, as you may have deduced, this was the weekend of the Fourth of July, and with four days free and only two days of obligations for the wedding, I decided to be a little ambitious and add some fun times into the mix.
(And by "add some fun times into the mix," I mean, "make up for the fact that I stupidly didn't realize my flight to Chicago went through Minneapolis and left me with a 14-hour layover since I can't read "pm" and "am" correctly. I suck.)
So, being in Minneapolis from 5:30pm until 7:00am, I decided I needed to make the most of this. (A wise choice, as it turns out, because if I'd been stuck in the hotel I chose for the whole time, I'd have gone blind from the utterly garish combination of aqua blue walls, sunflower yellow comforter, and orange shag carpeting.) After a little research, I discovered two solid stops that were reasonable enough to make: a hamburger joint called The 5-8 Club that serves a burger called the Juicy Lucy, a Minneapolis specialty; and, of course, a stop at Target Field to see a Twins game and visit my 16th Major League ballpark.
At the start, the plan looked good: arrive at 5:30pm, complimentary shuttle to the hotel to drop off my bags and check in, shuttle back to the airport, light rail to the ballpark for the 7:05pm start, watch the game, get my obligatory helmet cup, light rail back to the airport, taxi to The 5-8 Club (which closes at midnight), get my burger, taxi back to the hotel, and sleep until I needed to get to the airport around 5:30am. I'm sure I'd be exhausted, but it'd be so worth it, no?
Well, funny story...
Everything went swimmingly until I got to the park. Don't get me wrong: Target Field is super nice. I'd never been to the Metrodome, but just passing it on the way there in the light rail, I got the sense it's not nearly as grand as it appears on TV. Plus, outdoor parks always trump the indoor places, if for no other reason than the views. And though I was seated in literally the top row of the stadium, the field did not look too miniscule, and the straight-ahead view was pretty spectacular:
By the 4th inning, I was itching to accomplish my helmet cup goal, so I alighted from my seat, the Twins ahead 2-0 behind Carl Pavano (!) and his superb pitching (!!), and began to make my way towards the long-lined ice cream stand.
Then, as I was next in line, disaster struck. I overheard the server telling the woman in front of me that, alas, there were no helmet cups. (Shock.) Then, an even more dastardly twist: they were shipping in from China and had gotten held up at the port. So there might not be any in the stadium at all. (Horror.)
Believe me, my friends, I left no stone unturned. I left the line and walked through every. concourse. in. the. stadium. looking for a stand that had helmet cups. All four levels, two laps each. Plenty of time to observe that, while the park is sleek and nice and has some interesting Minneapolis touches, the walkways distinctly felt like...well...being inside a Target store. (Still not sure how I feel about that.) But most importantly, I had run clean out of ice cream stands.
The result: no dice. Operation Sixteen was not going to be succeeding that day.
Now, you may think me overdramatic here. I was crushed, sure, but I was still at the park, and the game was still solid, and it was only a minor hiccup, right? Why should I let something like that bother me?
Because with that one little bad karmic stroke, things went downhill.
- First off, the Twins blew the lead. In the bottom of the 9th. With two outs. And two strikes. The damn closer gave up the tying run, and then the 10th inning reliever gave up another run in the 10th. They were one strike away from a victory, and ended up losing 5-4.
- Secondly, since the game went into extra innings, it took almost four hours. Which necessitated taking a cab right from the stadium if I wanted to get to The 5-8 Club before closing.
- My cab driver was incompetent. He expected me to give him directions and know where this place was. Hey jerkwad: this is your town, not mine. I've been here 4 hours. Shouldn't you know where things are?!
- You may have noticed I have not linked to The 5-8 Club's Web site at any point in this post. That's because when I arrived, at 11:20pm, the place was closed. Lights off. Empty parking lot. They were supposed to be open until midnight. I hadn't had dinner. So yeah, I'm pissed. No link for you. Jerks.
- Did I mention my cab driver was incompetent? He had no idea how to get me back to my hotel. And I had to tell him at one point that we were going the wrong way. I did. How does he not know that Bloomington is south of Minneapolis, and that heading towards downtown is going the opposite direction?! Asshat.
And so I returned to my hotel at midnight, due to awaken at 4:30am, in a sour mood, having had no dinner, and unable to sleep because of my hunger. On the upside, the decor of the room was far less of an eyesore with the lights off. Small blessings, I suppose.
So concludes Day 1 of my trip. There are more misadventures to come, so stay tuned for the rest of tale in tomorrow's post!
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