Today I want to tell you about the bumper sticker I saw as I was riding my (son's) bike around Liberty Park. But FIRST I want to tell you about the Bees game we went to the other night. It was a good one actually. The Bees trailed the entire game until the ninth inning, when Casey Smith stepped up and hammered out a game-ending three-run double.
So cool! The crowd started clapping and cheering and doing the YMCA dance. Even big hairy guys with tattoos were up on their feet, forming letters over their heads. How could you not love a game that ended like that?
But here's the best part. As we were leaving the ballpark, we were each handed our very own roll of TOILET PAPER! It was a promotional deal. Free toilet paper for everybody in attendance. And because there were four of us at the game, the Cannons went home with four free rolls. Which meant we wouldn't run out for a few days! Which also meant I wouldn't have to tell the kids to use the bathroom at the Sinclair by our house until I stocked up on toilet paper at the grocery store!
Sweet!
OK. I don't know about you, but of all the things I expect to get at a baseball game, free toilet paper isn't one of them. A program? Yes. Peanuts? Bigger yes. Hot dogs? Biggest yes of all. It's against human nature to go to a baseball game and NOT eat a hot dog smothered with relish.
But free toilet paper? Um ...
At first I thought the people in charge of promotions at Franklin Quest Field had lost their minds.
Not that I have anything against toilet paper. In fact, toilet paper is one of my Top Ten Favorite Inventions Ever. (OTHER FAVORITE INVENTIONS: drive-through windows, cup-holders in cars and also movie theaters, fry sauce, fresh peaches from Brigham City, washing machines and dryers, also vacuums, crushed ice, cold cans of Dr Pepper.)
(Notice, however, I did not say cell phones.) (Does anyone really want to see one more driver pull into a busy intersection while chatting on a cell phone?)
But seriously. HOW SMART IS IT to turn loose several thousand individuals — many of whom have been drinking — on our fair city after loading them up with free rolls of toilet paper? Just think of the possibilities ...
Still, people looked totally pleased as they shoved each other aside to get their free rolls of toilet paper. You would have thought they were snatching up beads at a Mardi Gras parade. They looked the same way at the next game we attended where everybody scored a free loaf of wheat bread on their way out of the ballpark.
Which brings me to the bumper sticker I saw in Liberty Park. It said, "Say something good about America." So here goes.
I am guessing that America is the only place in the world where you can go to an athletic event and come home with free toilet paper and bread. Wheat even. The healthy kind.
In the meantime, you got to spend the night watching a great game, surrounded by family and friends and happy hairy guys doing little dances in the ninth inning, while the music played and the sun went down and the mountains turned blue. What a country!
I love it here.
I really do.
E-mail: acannon@desnews.com