Mr. Baseball and the Fiber Optic Bear

Elephant Memory

Introducing Mr. Baseball

As much as I respect the separation of church and state, I have the same regard for the separation of business and pleasure. This sensitivity has made it impossible for me to attend faculty Christmas parties since my first year of teaching in 1968.

A couple of weeks ago, Beatrice and I went to see the Incredibles with two of our friends, Mr. Baseball and his wife Rosie. Before the movie, we had dinner at Bugaboo Creek and somehow the conversation turned to the upcoming faculty Christmas party at the school where Mr. Baseball teaches Spanish. I had been a long term substitute teacher at that building for the first semester of the last school year. I liked the people there, they treated me with kindness and respect. I was surprised and happy when Beatrice seemed interested in attending the shindig.. She asked about the price of tickets. She told Mr. Baseball to pick up two tickets for us and we’d pay him at the party.

I repressed the urge to express my trepidation about such parties perhaps because since I am receiving a retirement check I must be, in fact, retired even though I keep coming out of retirement to teach again. If I am retired such parties can not truly be perceived as “business” so I don’t need to separate them from whatever pursuit of pleasure I embark upon.

Still, I wondered how the attendees passed the time before and after the buffet. Mr. Baseball told me that “a white elephant “activity was on the agenda. I didn’t know exactly what a white elephant activity entailed so I asked Mr. Baseball to sum it up for me.

“You bring in some piece of junk you’ve got hanging around the house that you don’t want and yet don’t know what to do with. You wrap the junk up as nice as you can. You give your precision wrapped junk to somebody else. They give their junk that they don’t want to you and everybody‘s happy, sort of ”

The whole exercise sounded like a microcosm of most of the relationships that I’ve observed in my lifetime and thus possessed a certain minimal degree of validity along with existential possibility.

By the time we walked out of the movie, three hours later, I had forgotten about the party and the white elephant.

Beatrice, however, remembered.

Drawing Elston Howard
At the table....

A week later Beatrice and I were headed for the faculty party. I remembered about the white elephant event only as we pulled into the parking lot. I asked Beatrice if she had remembered and of course, she had it “covered.”

We got to the party house a little early so we had our choice of seats. We chose a table near the buffet and saved two more places for Mr. Baseball and Rosie. As it turned out, the principal, Chris and his wife along with the vice -principal Ken and his wife chose to sit at the same table.

Once the crowd had gathered, Chris went around with a manilla envelope which contained a bunch of numbers. I found out that I had to draw a number from this envelope and the number that I drew had something to do with the order in which I selected from the white elephants on the main table. When it comes to drawing numbers I usually have bad luck. In my fantasy baseball drafts I always draw the last pick in the first round. Mr. Baseball almost always draws the first pick. Mr. Baseball has beaten me in thirteen consecutive fantasy leagues. Not only has he beaten me but he has won the league every year. That’s why we call him Mr. Baseball.

Some of you may remember when Roger Clemens was pitching for the Blue Jays. The Red Sox had apparently given up on the Rocket. He started off the season shakily . His mediocre start seemed to justify the lack of faith that Boston had in their one time ace. A guy in my league decided he would trade Clemens before the Rocket crashed and burned. The only taker was Mr. Baseball. The trade was made. Clemens won his next fifteen starts. He won the Cy Young Award. Mr. Baseball won the league again. The guy who traded Clemens never entered our competition again.

To this day, if I mention the name Roger Clemens to that guy, he gets rattled as a look of shell shock crosses his brow. When I mention Roger Clemens to Mr. Baseball, he laughs mercilessly.

Anyway, Mr. Baseball reached into the envelope and pulled out number 4 which he immediately described as “Lou Gehrig”. I picked next and pulled out number 32.

Chris remarked with a laugh “Thornton got the last number”.

I shrugged as I realized that once again I was at the bottom of the barrel. I looked at Mr. Baseball and said “Elston Howard” trying to make the best out of yet another calamitous draw.

I detected a shadow of worry cross Mr. Baseball’s face. The cause of that the umbrage was not discernible to me.

Stealing the Elephant
no cuddles for baby

A few minutes later I began to understand why in this case, Elston Howard might be more valuable than Lou Gehrig and why the moon shadow had momentarily danced on the face of Mr. Baseball.

Sadie, the school psychiatrist, explained the rules of the White Elephant. “Each person gets a number.. No. 1 person goes first, picks any gift... opens it.. sits down. No. 2 person takes a gift..or if he/she likes No 1's gift, steals the gift from No 1 and No. 1 gets to choose again from the gifts on the elephant table and on and on. Of course, the higher your number...the more gifts you get to choose from. Stealing is encouraged but no gift can be stolen more than three times. Once a gift is stolen three times, the last person who steals it owns it.”

I didn’t know exactly what “stealing” meant but since I had drawn the highest number, I figured that somehow I would have my pick of anything on the table.

The person who drew number one, a math teacher named Betsy stepped up to the table and picked out a nicely wrapped, mid-size package. She opened the package and inside was little teapot, short but not particularly stout. Person number two stepped forward and opened a package that contained three foggy martini glasses. Person three, a business teacher named John unwrapped an elephant that contained a dozen tapes of music of the ELO, Queen, Genesis, Allan Parsons Project, 70's-80's ilk. The fourth person to choose was Mr. Baseball. He walked confidently to the table and unknowingly picked the very package that Beatrice had brought to the game. He picked our junk, which turned out to be an empty box with A to Z dividers in which coupons could be kept and organized.

Beatrice was delighted. Mr. Baseball was less than enthralled. His thrall diminished even further when I whispered to Beatrice in a tone loud enough for Mr Baseball to hear if he were eavesdropping “we’ve been trying to throw that out for years”.

At this juncture it began to dawn on me that I had a decent deal. I didn’t know if Beatrice understood our good fortune. I tried to explain to her that we had the last choice and that meant we could steal anything that had been chosen or claim the last elephant in the circus. Beatrice seemed unimpressed. I asked her if she wanted the martini glasses. She said we had more martini glasses than we needed already. I said, well keep your eyes open because we can claim any gift that anybody picks for the remainder of the game.

Beatrice, always seeking the higher moral ground, said, “I can’t imagine anyone stealing anything from anyone else and we’re certainly not going to steal anything”

Next, a very pregnant woman picked a huge package from the table which was obviously a stuffed animal of some kind. The package turned out to be a gigantic teddy bear which the woman, Laura said would be perfect for her baby to play with in a couple of years. She was the first person to be pleased with what she had selected.

The very next person shocked me when she immediately said “I’ll take Teddy, thank you”. She went over to the pregnant woman, Laurie, and walked away with the teddy bear that Laurie's future child would never cuddle.

Laurie was clearly disappointed. She went back to the table and picked again. This time the gift she chose turned out to be a series of seven interlocking picture frames for three by five photographs. Immediately I heard a voice say “Oh, that is so stolen” and before Laurie could even get to her seat the next person, Ivan an English teacher, put his number down and took the frames from Laurie.

The game was heating up. Beatrice nodded.

And Mr. Baseball had our junk.

That was the best part.

The second best part was that now Beatrice seemed willing to steal. With legalized larceny in our hearts, we were sitting pretty.

 

 

Missionary Position

amidst the stampede

Next came a random stampede of elephants including but not limited to an attache case, several Christmas ornaments, a toaster, a fiber-optic bear, a chess board, a mini-intercom system, a glass sculpture, a glow in the dark Frosty the Snowman, a box of golf tees, a wallet, a pair of gloves and another ten items whose nondescript existence escapes my recall.

A pattern seemed to be emerging. Laurie, the pregnant woman, kept opening the best packages and then those trinkets would immediately be stolen from her. This happened at least five times. The later it grew in the game, the more enthusiastically folks waved their newly acquired pieces of junk hoping that whoever ‘s number was up would steal the junk from them and give them another shot at the elephant.

Remember, the junk that each of them was trying to get rid of was the very junk that somebody else had already successfully gotten rid of by getting rid of it to the very people who were now trying to get rid of it again in the hopes of acquiring yet another piece of junk that they would be a little less willing to get rid of on somebody else.

The usual.

“ C’mon. Check out this pair of gloves. They fit any size. They can be worn by a man woman or child. Great for cold hands. C’mon. Cold out tonight. You need some gloves”

“This box contains all twenty six letters of the alphabet. Great for coupon clippers.”

“ Everybody loves to play chess. It sharpens the mind. Here’s a beautiful chess set”

“Don’t you dare come over here and take my fiber-optic bear”

“This whatever it is would make a great whatchamacallit”

Etc.

When only a few items remained on the table, we had to get serious about our decision making. Like most husbands, my happiest moments come when I see a smile on the face of my wife. Like most husbands I’m always want to know what it is that my wife wants. Like most husbands, I ask her what she wants too much which irritates her because at a certain point I’m supposed to know what she wants and if I have to ask her what she wants when I’m supposed to know what she wants without asking well, she “doesn’t want anything, thank you” and that’s not good.

I thought I was approaching that point when Beatrice astonished me by looking directly into my eyes and saying with perfect clarity. “I love that fiber optic bear. Get it for me”.

All of a sudden I elevated to the next level of husbandry ; man on a mission.

I had an opportunity to bring a smile to my woman’s face.

I was in position.

What more can a man ask?

Beatrice and Her Bear
In the hands of Baseball

It made no sense to try and beat Mr. Baseball at his own game so in the hope of satisfying Beatrice, I decided to mix metaphors and run to daylight.

The fiber optic bear had drawn no attention through the first twenty six rounds. The reverse psychology of “don’t you dare take my fiber optic bear” utilized by Brad the librarian who had originally picked the bear seemed to be ineffective as nobody took the bait.

When my turn came, the bear was still in the daylight.

I went to the table. I listened to the various offers. I pretended to flirt with the last elephant on the table but my mind was made up. “Give me the bear, Brad”.

Brad was very happy to oblige.

I took my trophy back to Beatrice. She looked at the bear with tenderness and then turned her loving eyes towards me. I thought I saw a tear. Beatrice is a tough lady. She doesn’t cry. Yet somehow the bear was breaking through her sentimental line of scrimmage. She gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. Momentarily, I was brave. Momentarily, I was young.

In the meantime, Brad had apparently decided to keep the game going by stealing once again from Laurie.

I wasn’t paying much attention. I was focused on the radiantly beaming Beatrice and her bear.

My focus was rudely interrupted when Laurie burst into my field of vision.

“I’ll take the bear, Thornton”

And with that, she took the bear.

“ Don’t take the bear” I pleaded.

“Hey, you’re retired and you make more money than anybody here so say goodbye to the bear”

Laurie and the bear trundled to the other side of the room.

All of a sudden, it was my turn to choose again. Here was an authentically “aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play” moment of profound anti-climax.

As I staggered back to the elephant table, I tried to rationalize with some degree of empathy. Hey, Laurie did have a bambino on the way plus she had been stolen from at least five times.

And Mr. Baseball was still saddled with my junk.

I decided to keep the game going by passing the last pachyderm and going for a steal. Once again, I heard the pleas.

One plea stood out amongst the cacophony.

“Thornton take this whatever it is and assign your students a composition to figure out what the hell it is”

I picked the whatever it is which turned out to be glass sculpture . The sculpture looked vaguely like some sort of drug paraphernalia or a synthesis of Sideshow Bob and a snake crawling out of a saxophone. Trying to be good natured, I said that I would indeed use this as a composition subject but my heart was not in it. I brought this questionable object d’art back to my seat where Beatrice looked flabbergasted.

The guy that I took the sculpture from followed me over to my table and to my further stupification, stole my cardboard piece of junk from Mr. Baseball.

Chris, the principal muttered under his breath "what's wrong with that guy?"

Mr. Baseball jumped to his feet and like a clean-up hitter smashing a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, strode over to Laurie.

“ I’ll take the bear”

He came back to our table and set his fiber optic ursine next to Beatrice, beyond her grasp.

Beatrice looked disbelievingly at the bear in the hands of Baseball.

Laurie stole the attache case from Ken.

Ken picked the last elephant which turned out to be a candy jar full of Hershey kisses.

For a moment, I thought that Mr. Baseball had redeemed the bear in order to give it back to Beatrice.

That moment passed painfully.

I had a desperate idea.

“Mr. Baseball, I’ll give you this beautiful sculpture for the bear”

Mr. Baseball turned to me with that Roger Clemens look on his face and said “ Why should I take that ugly thing back. I’ve been trying to get rid of that piece of junk for the last five years”

Yes, Mr. Baseball had my bear and I had inadvertently chosen his junk which I now possessed.

I reached into my pocket and took out five bucks.I offered the fin to Mr. Baseball. Baseball shook his head. I pulled out a ten dollar bill. Baseball continued to shake his head. I put the five and the ten together. Fifteen bucks for somebody else’s junk.

Baseball said no.

He tucked the bear under his arm. He and Rosie headed briskly for the door. I’m sure that in the back of his mind, he heard Russ Hodges voice screaming “The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant Aaaarrrgggh”

A few minutes later, Beatrice, me and the Sideshow Bob snake saxophone were driving home in frigid weather that could be described as an Arctic assault.