As a young child, I was quite the enthusiastic fan of the american game known as baseball. One day, I finally attended my first professional game. I was excited. I was ecstatic. I was electrified. I was e-nebriated with youthful basebull buzz.
It did not matter that we sat in the far away outfield bleachers. It did not matter that we were watching the hapless home town Texas Rangers take the field in a less than noble performance. What did matter was that I was there to witness the great game unfold on the freshly cut green of Arlington Stadium, located just south of I-20 and just west of Six Flags. At some point during the contest between the Rangers and the Whoosits (I have forgotten who they played, probably the White Sox) that I developed the need to use the bathroom facilities.
Arlington Stadium will never be revered by baseball historians. It will never be listed amongst the great long lost ballparks like Ebbets Field, Shibe Park, Comiskey Park, Tiger Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and the soon to be replaced Fenway Park. And, it probably does not deserve such accolades.
The place started out as Turnpike Stadium, a small minor league park, and then grew into a sort of mishmash major league park with the arrival of the Washington Senators. The site was continually added onto until it grew into a lump of a ballpark with the addition of upper decks and a big time crazy ass scoreboard.
Yet, the stadium still had humble roots, and I feel fond of the old place even though they built that new silly Ballpark in Arlington, which resembles a theme park (where the theme happens to be baseball). The old place just kind of had a feel to it. It was like the trailer park of baseball parks. It certainly wasn't attractive from the outside, but it never pretended to be anything that it wasn't. And, let's face it, the Rangers were never hot shit, either. They were a perfect match for each other.
The new place resembles a gated suburban community, but that's the new DFW for you, I digress. At the old place, you took a piss in a horse trough. The new place has fancy pants auto flush urinals in which a Docker's wearing pseudo fan can micturate upon.
Ah yes, the bathrooms, that is where my story begins. As I mentioned earlier, at some point during the contest I developed the urgent need to use the bathroom facilities. Number one it was. As a boy, I entered the men's room and noticed the troughs were thouroghly occupied. I am not really sure how many people can use a single trough at once, I guess it's really a function on the width of the trough and the distance in which men care to stand apart from each other while urinating.
Instead of waiting in line, I looked at the stalls. An open stall awaited me. As I entered the stall, I took a quick glance into the toilet and noticed the most disgusting diarrhea that has ever exited a man's body before. There must have been a pound of brisket's worth in there and It was all floating atop a bowl full of tan liquid. My stomach contorted at this sight and I closed my eyes and looked away immediately while flushing the toilet with one hand and unleashing my ding-a-ling with the other. After a few seconds of business, I took another glance and realized the toilet was clogged and the liquid level was rising rapidly. Oily swatches of diarrhea began to spill out on to my shoes.
"Unggh," I gagged.
I continued to pee because, let's face it, I had to go and I had nowhere else to go. Once you start, you can't stop. Unfortunately, I was also about to vomit everywhere and I could not bear the look or the smell of the stuff that was splashing on to the floor. So much liquid was splashing on the ground that when a semi-solid piece hit the floor, it hydro-planed across the tile and entered the territory of the adjacent stalls.
"Ewww," the person to my left said.
"Awww," the person to my right said.
"Unggh," I gagged again.
People may underestimate the grossness of another person's feces, but please do not underestimate the grossness of another person's feces sliding on the floor like one of those critters in the Alien movies.
Eventually, I finished up, and the entire time I was gagging. I continually gagged for the remainder of the game. The mere thought of the incident incited gaggetry. To this very day, if I tell the story verbally, I am likely to gag repeatedly. Sometimes I cannot even finish the story.
I went to several more Ranger games at the old stadium after that. I got see Nolan Ryan pitch. I got to see my first triple play. I got to see my first bench clearing brawl. I came damn close to catching a Larry Parrish homer in the left field bleachers one game. I even saw myself on the nightly news during the sports cast after the game, scrambling for the ball. But, I've never seen anything filthier than what I saw that first night.
"Ungggehheh!"
