A toddler's tale of woe

As the precocious two-year-old daughter of a K&K staffer, I felt compelled to write to you about my dad and his misfortune. As you know, he's on holidays. and we're glad to have him home, although his new- found obsession with performing Kokoro Dance moves at the local creek has become tiresome.

But hey, he's my dad. And when mom manages to pry the stereo headphones from his sunburned ears in the morning after another sleepless night building castles with empty Courvoisier bottles, he actually does stuff with us.

Which brings me to his misfortune. On Wednesday, we went to a Vancouver Canadians baseball game at Nat Bailey Stadium. Mom was given the day off and, besides, she hates baseball.

My sister, who is twice my age, and I had never been to a game. When we arrived, there was no parking to be found on the street. Permit only. So dad paid $5 for a spot in the Canadians' lot. Saved us a long walk.

We queued in front of the ticket window and remained expectedly diffident as the baseball folk ogled our retro sunglasses and funky hats. (Sis and I shared a laugh later about how over the top it would have been had we worn our ironic T-shirts.)

With the sun on dad's mind, he asked the teller for three seats under the roof. Fine, she said. Where did we want to sit? Didn't matter, Dad replied, as long as it was under the roof and out of the sun. OK, she said, that will be $33.

I'm pretty sure he guffawed, and then gave one of those stares Michael Douglas did in that movie where he loses it on a hot day in Los Angeles and goes on a rampage. Dad, thankfully, didn't lose it. He just asked why a ticket cost $11 for a two-year-old. That's the same price for an adult, isn't it?

The reply went something like this: "If she's going to be taking up a seat, then that's just the way it is," said the young blonde who had obviously gone nuts with the Crest whitener strips. (Sorry about the term "blonde," but I learned this from reading a Mickey Spillane novel I found under Dad's bed. Yes, I'm two, but if you recall, precocious).

So Dad paid her. Total so far: $38. Then came the two hamburgers, two french fries and a Pepsi. Total: $17.75. Add that to the $38, and we're at $55.75 and we haven't even sat down. The seats, it turned out, were not numbered. Which meant we could sit anywhere in the stadium except in the $12.50 "box seats" and something called the $20 "Servicemaster Diamond Club" seats.

As luck would have it, we met our uncle there. He was sitting way up from home plate with my aunt, five-month-old cousin and two-year-old cousin. It cost him a total of $16 for him and my aunt. My cousins got in free. Turns out he was given "General Admission" tickets. Nose bleeds. He too asked to sit under the roof. We were sold-and I emphasize the sold here-"Premium Festival" tickets. Lower nose bleeds.

An inquiry by Dad to the Canadians office got the same shoulder shrug of a reply from another woman. So we bought a small bag of $4 popcorn and went back to our seats. Total so far: $59.75.

Good thing Dad brought some juice boxes, considering how much he already spent. And it was a good thing we concealed the juice because Security Man asked the family behind us to put away their bag of chips. No outside food, barked the very important Security Man.

Then we had to pee. Because Mom wasn't with us, we had to use a stall in the men's washroom. It wouldn't have been so bad if the area where all the stalls were wasn't flooded with a half-inch of what we hoped was water. I won't go into detail, but it's a good thing we brought a change of clothes.

Now I know why Mom hates baseball.

published on 08/11/2006