Page 17 of Missed Exit

She’s solving problems baseball never knew it had.

“Did your ex-boyfriend not watch baseball?”

“No. He was too busy watching his pencil dick slide in and out of his brother’s wife.”

I do a spit-take with my beer. That escalated quickly. I didn’t expect her to revisit that detail, and it’s definitely not what I want her to be thinking about right now.

“Any chance you’re getting hungry for something more substantial than chips?” I ask.

“I am not cooking you dinner.”

“Actually, I was offering to have something delivered.”

“Oh, fun. Like going to the concession stand.”

“Yeah, just like that.” I open the food delivery app on my phone. “Do you like Indian food?”

“That doesn’t seem like baseball food.”

“Well, I don’t know anywhere that delivers hotdogs, so how spicy do like your curry?”

“Medium. I can’t believe there’s Indian food here.”

“Don’t get too excited. You haven’t had it yet. It might not live up to your standards.”

“I’m honestly not that picky.”

“That explains your ex.”

She laughs, which was my intention, but it was a risky comment. If I’d thought about it before the words flew out of my mouth, I might not have said it. If she’d defended him, I’d be enjoying the rest of this game a whole lot less.

Then she says, “Brick in no way brought enough spice to the table to be compared to Indian food.”

That clears things up well enough.

“Ouch. I hope there aren’t any women out there who’d say that about me.”

“I could say a lot worse about him, but I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good baseball game.”

“I appreciate that. But you can feel free to vent whenever you need to. It can help, sometimes.”

The score is fourteen to four in the bottom of the fourth. This isn’t anywhere near a perfect ballgame. And listening to her trash her ex is never going to ruin anything for me.

“Are you blind!” she suddenly yells at the TV. “In what world was that a strike?”

She catches on quick. But that was a strike by a mile.

Greta needs to yell, and baseball offers plenty of options to take your frustrations out on a stranger in the privacy of your own living room. No consequences, just cleansing.

When the day comes that she stops yelling, I’ll know she’s gotten the worst of her heartbreak out of her system. Until then, she can tell me all about how unfair the world is, and I’ll listen to her reinvent baseball during every game she’ll watch with me.

She takes my mind off things that bother me a hell of a lot more. It’s a fair trade.

9

Greta

Same Old Song

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