Don't Condescend Me, Man

Possibly one of the greatest movie scenes ever. It's how I felt on Thursday at the Giants game.

The problem with late season games when in a pennant race, as astutely observed by my stepdad, is that every bandwagon hopping, fair-weather fan suddenly shows up at the game and they do not have the sense of humor or wherewithal to deal with the usual occurrences of the game that those of us who have been going all season do. I, unfortunately, ran into one such "fan" on Thursday and it completely threw off my entire day.

I attended the game with my dad, Angela, and four of her friends, two couples. We had seats in club level that we were rarely in because they were directly in the sun and the sun is hot. Club level, it should be noted, are the nice, expensive seats. I wasn't in the rowdy bleachers or the upper view reserve seats. About the 7th inning I made my way down to our row of seats, beer and hot dog in hand. Admittedly, I'd had a few beers but was nowhere near drunk. I took the third seat in the row, next to two business gentleman. I ate my dog as Angela's friends came and went. I'd been in this particular one of our seats for no more than ten minutes. A couple seats down from me was Angela's friend Ed. As one does at the game, I crossed my legs and put my foot on the back of the chair adjacent to my seat. It wasn't on top of the chair, I wasn't kicking the chair like the four year old in the seat behind you on the airplane. I'm a grown ass adult and I had the audacity to, as I've done MANY times before, place my foot there. If anything it may have added a little pressure to the woman who was sitting there, but it certainly wasn't anything that any regular attendee of the game wouldn't have been used to.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post: I don't like being scolded. It throws me completely off. I don't know how to react to it. So when the man sitting in front of me turned around and suddenly swatted my foot down and tersely said, "THANKS" I was absolutely flabbergasted. Wait, what just happened?! I was caught completely off guard. Under normal circumstances, with normal fans, if the man had turned around and said, "Hey, can you move your foot?" it wouldn't have been a problem. I would have apologized for the inconvenience and moved my foot. My bad. But I've just been swatted at AND yelled at for doing absolutely nothing wrong (it took me awhile after the incident to get to the "No, really, you did nothing wrong at all" place). I KNOW I did nothing wrong because Ed, who witnessed the event, was completely offended as well, and the two guys sitting behind me, who also witnessed it, told me, "You should pour your beer on him!"

I am not a confrontational person. I am a smartass. I have a quick wit. I do NOT like aggressiveness or confrontation. I avoid it, as do most people. I don't want to be a troublemaker. I don't want things to escalate.

Ed asks me if he can say something. I tell him exactly as above, "Really. It's fine. I don't like confrontation." Ed asks me about four more times, "No, really, I want to say something." I demure and let Ed ask them if those are in fact their seats, if they have a right to be there, and although I don't hear what the man says to Ed, I am later informed that angry man questioned my mother's raising of me. Ohrly? My mom would cut a bitch for that, jackass.

I comment to the guys behind me, who are hysterically amused by all of this, that "I want my daddy." They think I am joking. I am not. I text my dad, "Can you come down here?" A) my father is a large, imposing man. B) My father is a police officer, which angry man will neither know nor be informed of. C) Because of A&B he is good in these situations. I'm trying not to overreact here but in a LIFETIME of attending Giants games, I have NEVER ever never been treated so rudely or disrespectfully. ALL the man had to, as outlined above, was say, "Excuse me, can you move your foot?" And like I said, it's not like I was a four year old throwing a tantrum, repeatedly kicking the back of his seat.

Dad makes his way down to our seats. I calmly tell him, "We have a little situation here," and outline what has transpired. Angry guy is purposefully not looking around or making eye contact. Dad says, "Excuse me? You have a problem with my daughter?" And angry guy makes what will easily be his biggest mistake of the day, "UH YEAH WE GOT A PROBLEM HERE! Your DAUGHTER was kicking the back of the seat! I asked her to move her foot!" "She says you hit her foot." "I didn't touch her!" Um, yeah, you did, there are witnesses, asshole. Dad says, in his negotiator voice, "Well let me tell you what the deal is..." Dad is going to go into his outline of the code section on battery (harmful or offensive contact with the person of another) when guy says, "There is no DEAL here, PAL!" Oh, dude, HUGE mistake. Massive. Giant, if I may say so. Dad says, and I didn't catch the last word but kudos to my dad, "I'm not your pal, bitch." They exchange a couple more phrases when my dad abruptly leaves. I don't know what he's going to do but I'm staying in the seat and I'm fairly certain this isn't the end of it.

The guys behind me are cracking up now for the free entertainment. "That's your dad? Holy geezus, no wonder you called him." I said, "Yeah, wait 'til you see my brother." My brother was also at the game, hanging out inside the club level, mere feet from me. He may be a neanderthal but when all else fails I have a 6'3" completely tattooed brother and I know when worse comes to worse, he's got my back. Guys also observe, "Dude is having NO fun now. Look at him. Doesn't have his arm around his lady. Just not even enjoying themselves at all." "What are we at the movie theater? Don't cross this invisible line!" Thank god for them, helping me relax. I was literally shaking.

At this point, right after dad leaves, wife, whose chair I had dared to touch, turns around and says, "Can that be the end of it? Can we just agree to enjoy the game now?" I tell her honestly, "I'm content enjoying the game now, but I've gotten my father involved and it's up to him." Angry guy has not turned around or apologized at all for touching me. So frankly lady, you're husband's a dick, I'm glad to have men in my life to handle these situations, and I may not be confrontational but there are those in my life that are. So suck it. (I don't say any of this, but I think it.)

Right then, and I swear to god I didn't script this, Angela's friend Steve returns to the seat, completely unaware of the events that transpired. Steve is also a big dude and kind of a goofball. We're all sort of nervously laughing when Steve says, "Uh oh. What happened?" He looks at me and says, "I'm sitting at least two seats away from you! You're trouble!" I about double over in laughter. I am sure angry guy can hear all the comments that are being made but isn't flinching. I also know that as a matter of pride, having fought for his seat at the Giants game, he ain't going nowhere. Nor am I.

Until I realize I have a missed call from my father. I return to the inside of the club level to find him and see Angela there with Doug. I don't know where Dad is. I start to relate the story to them, obviously excited, when Doug says, "Dude. Calm down. Stop yelling." Sorry! This is traumatizing!

As I'm standing talking to Doug, two cops walk through the club level. I happen to know one of them since pretty much birth, he used to be my mom's partner. We exchange pleasantries but I don't drag them into my drama. They return a couple minutes later with my dad. Dad tells them what happened and the one who used to be my mom's partner asks them what he wants to happen. Dad says, "I want him cited." A citation is like an arrest. You get a court date. You have to deal with it. Dad doesn't just want him thrown out of the game because it's the bottom of the 8th, not really a punishment. Dad says, "I'll sign the citizen's arrest form." I start to sprint down to the seat to get the guy, when cops tell me to stay where I am. They also have to tell my dad to back down because he's frothing now. If they leave it to my dad to deal with this dude, it is NOT going to go well for angry guy. Just as the cops are about to go down to the seat, having figured out where the guy is sitting and beginning their report, guy and wife come up the stairs to exit the game. They get detained by the cops. Dad is on the opposite side of the door from me, angry guy, wife and cops in the center, and then me and Angela. I hear angry guy's exchange with the cops, "We paid a lot of money for these seats..." A) No one fucking cares what you paid, douche. B) So did we (well someone did, if not ME exactly). C) Only a non-regular fan says something about how much they paid. He denies again having touched me. Later, in the police substation under the stadium he'll tell the cops, "Well they were drunk." The cops will tell them we weren't. And regardless, even if I'd been shit faced, it gives dude no right to TOUCH me. He'll then say, "Well she kicked my chair. Isn't THAT a battery?" Way to grasp at straws, jerk wad.

Dad makes his way over to standing by me and Angela so that I tune out what the exchange between angry guy and cops. But angry guy's wife makes another attempt, "What can we do to make this be the end of it?" Dad says, "It's too late for that. The cops won't let me talk to your husband, so I'm gonna tell you, you're husband is an asshole." I heart my dad. Lady says, "I accept what you are saying, and I'm sorry but can't this just end?" Did you just Psychology 101 us? Srsly? "I accept what you are saying"? I shrug my shoulders. AND I don't want your apology, I want your husband's. If he'd apologized for overreacting, this could have been done, but he didn't, and he continued to escalate things. This is the kind of guy where obviously this isn't the first time he's had a problem like this and the wife seems aware of it, hence her apologizing for his behavior. As funny guys behind me mentioned, "He's not getting laid tonight." Funny guys also high-fived me on their way out and thanked me for the entertainment. No, thank YOU.

Guy is escorted with the police to the substation. I have to go down there as well to write out an incident report. When I get to the substation, I have to hold in that I know everyone down there. Once cop who used to be mom's partner and I are alone and he's writing down my information like he doesn't know my home phone number by heart, he says, "You always were trouble. I told your mom since you were this big you were trouble!" Dad says, "Yeah, in fact that's why her mother and I split up, we couldn't agree on what to do with her." I die laughing. (This is funny because nowhere near true.) Dad's apologized to both of the cops for ruining their day by making them do actual police work. And that's the end of it, other than the continued nerves for the next couple hours.

So, yes, essentially I had a guy arrested (which is what a citation is, just instead of taking you to jail they cite and release you) for swatting my foot. It may seem like a slight overreaction but the way the guy treated me was SO unacceptable. Sometimes being a native San Franciscan with good connections isn't ALL that awful.

It also amazes me that a few days ago I can be in a stadium, in the South, with 93,000 highly intoxicated people without incident but I come to a midweek day game in freaking tree-hugging, hipster San Francisco and am met with such utter asshattery (tag reinstated). I'm thinking I'll just watch the post season on TV.