Batting Cages

It was day one of TomTom’s lock down and because he did not perform very well at baseball practice, and it was an attempt for him to get energy out, and earn checks, I took him to the batting cages Thursday night.  My cousin went out to meet us to give us some “Man” pointers on baseball.  It was a rainy night, or it wanted to rain, but never quite got there.  I called the park ahead to make sure they were open and they confirmed that it wasn’t raining at the park. 

We arrived and the batting cages were jam packed with the park teams practicing.  I asked the high school guys working at the office if we could bat with everything going on and they said if a cage was open we could just jump in and bat.  I cashed in a $10 bill and settled down with the idea that this might take more than 10 minutes.  TomTom and his cousin were practicing batting in the field with a rock and his bat.  As I sat and waited on the benches I heard the conversations around me about the batting cages being over booked.  I then asked one of the coaches that was holding up a batting cage with no one in it if we could jump in and bat.  He told me it was set up for soft ball, not baseball.  He kept repeating this, over and over.  Who gives a crap?  Can my child bat or not???

A light clicked on in my head and I realized that maybe they couldn’t say “No, you can’t bat” because it was a public area even though it was obviously over booked.  I got pissed.  TomTom had waited in line at that point and I had him and my cousin as a captive audience as I went back over to the high school boy in charge of this operation.  I asked again for the third time, actually the fourth if you include the initial phone call to the park, is my child going to be able to bat tonight?  I once again got the response that if a cage was open we could use it.  I pressed harder as a pissed off mom does – A cage was open, but I was told it was not set up for baseball.  What is the chance of a cage opening up – for baseball – that we can bat in?  Then he proceeded to tell me that they were booked up with team practices until 830 PM that night, but if a cage was open we could go in.  Then I got nasty. 

What exactly is the chance of a cage opening and us getting in little boy???? Ok. Maybe I didn’t say “little boy” out loud, but I could tell my cousin was getting weirded out because I was getting pissy with the poor innocent high school boy.  At this point he admitted it was slim to none. AFTER ASKING YOU, WAITING IN LINE,  AND ASKING THE COACH, THE THIRD TIME I ASK YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME WE CAN’T???????????  Why didn’t you just say that the first time and I would have left without getting pissy with you?  Then I looked at my hand full of tokens and looked at him with much anger and asked if I could get my cash back?   He then told me he didn’t handle cash and there was no way for me to get my money back.  I grumbled and informed him that if they would give out this information when people called to check and see if the batting cages were open and available it would save us all a lot of time and aggravation. 

My cousin was weirded out because of my mini drama.  TomTom was sent packing into the car.  My cousin was trying to make it better because he could see I was pissed, but we wasted about 30 minutes dealing with crappy information and it was time for us to go home and get dinner and get to bed.

On my ride home, for the first time in my life since having a child and no longer using recreational drugs, I considered the fact that maybe I needed to ask the doctor about valium or something to calm my nerves for the current condition of my life and the way I was reacting to things with the watery eye bullshit.  That thought got lost amongst many others in the first mile of my drive home and reflecting back on the moment now I think I was maybe just having a really bad couple of weeks.