Damn Ricardo!

I don't care where I go or what I do--I get in trouble. No matter what. Even if I'm behaving myself. Or doing something nice for someone else. Or just sitting there, minding my own business. Okay, so yes, I have a tendency to get myself into trouble way too often, but there are just those times when I didn't even do anything.

We're standing in line at Soxfest with say, 300 other people, to get Dank's autograph for the kids. I don't need an autograph, so I politely refuse the girl when she wants to give me the wristband which allows me to get one. "No, let someone else have the pleasure" I say nicely, "no use wasting it on me." And so there I stand, just waiting to take the kids' pictures while they get autographs from their favorite players. See? No trouble from me, folks.

After awhile a really good looking dude comes in and nobody seems to know who he is. The guy next to me tells me it is Clayton Richard, a relatively unknown new pitcher, and he goes over to one side of the room to let folks take their picture with him. It was sort of sad because there was absolutely no line for this poor guy. Nobody clapped when he came in or got excited that he was there. I kinda felt bad for the guy. There was a fan here and there, but it was nowhere near the line that we were in.

So, my new pally next to me, Ricardo, says "Hey, should we get out of line and get our picture with him while we can?" I'm thinking he's got a good idea there, and I offer to take his picture with the dude. "My fiance' is over in line for Ozzie" he's telling me, "so if you could take my picture, that'd be great!" Sure, I'm game, so the two of us go under the line marker and head over.

Ricardo goes up the stand (there's no line) and stands with the dude with really, really nice teeth and poses. So, I take a shot with his camera and then I grab mine to get a good, close-up shot. I snag a good one and I'm all proud of myself when Bossy Girl starts yelling at me. "Hey! Only ONE shot, lady!" she's starts making this big fuss. "Rules are only ONE photo!" she keeps going. "I'm sorry, " I said, "I don't even know this guy and I'm just trying to be nice!" But she's not letting it go. The official photographer laughs from embarrassment and says to me "Yeah, you'd better delete that last photo!" kiddingly, I just smiled and kinda slinked away with Ricardo.

Sheesh. Now I could see if I was holding up the line or something. I could see if I was having my own photo shoot with the whole family or something, but c'mon, TWO shots of Ricardo?! Really?!

Em and I went back a few minutes later, strictly because I just felt so darned bad for this young player who hadn't had a fan base yet--well, that and he was just so adorable with those nice white teeth (did I mention that already?). Does Ricardo come bail my hiney out? Oh no, he's in line, laughing at Joe trying to take ONE photo---the perfect one-shot photo--of Em and I with this guy.

Joe completely freaks out, afraid that beastly woman was going to yell at him too, and this is the resulting photo. Lovely, isn't it?! When else have you even seen such a great shot of my eye shadow? Or me, asleep. Or maybe when I'm dead. Em's irked because she said her forehead was all shiny. Joe crumbled under the pressure. Sigh.

Ricardo was last seen looking for Joanne, somewhere in line for Ozzie.