Bullshit and Testosterone

So last night we went to a Mariner's baseball game. This is not something we'd normally do, but our artist friend up the street gave us 4 tickets for free. She doesn't normally go to the games either, but her husband, a big, burly firefighter buys season tickets every year and sits second row up, just past third base. Very close. Very, very close. Everyone around us had baseball mits to catch the foul balls that came whipping down the third base line like the space shuttle after and errant lift off.

Anyway, we went with our friends, Jeanne and Lisa, and the four of us sat and ate peanuts and drank our $4 bottles of water and kept our eyes on the batter so we knew when the space shuttle baseballs were headed our direction. Behind us sat testosterone and his bullshitting friends. Like any manly baseball fan, their vocabulary was limited:

Testosterone: Dude, I know, ain't worth crap on the team.

Bullshit One: Shit, I know, totally stupid.

Turns out, they all didn't really know each other. So they finally got around to this question.

Testosterone: Man, in Philly the crowd would like be screaming their asses off to get this team moving (the M's were losing).

Bullshit One: You not from around here?

T: No, man, I'm from Philly.

Bullshit Two: Cool, dude, what brings you out here?

T: Work mostly. My girlfriend is from here though we broke up and she's back in Philly.

BS 1: Now, I'm confused.

At this point, the beer man comes around and they each get a round, though testosterone gets a lemonade...go figure.

BS 2: What kinda work ya do?

T: I'm a writer. I own a publishing company.

BS 1 and 2: Cool dude.

T: What about ya'll?

BS 1: ...(I didn't really hear this one because a ball was hit our direction and a guy in the section over reached out to get it and fell into the field.)

T: What about you, man?

BS 2: I'm a psychologist and a musician.

T: Cool, dude, what kind of music?

BS 2: Blues mostly. Been doing it for 30 years.

At this point I decide to fake stretch and look around at the writer with a limited vocabulary and the psychologist blues man.

So, I can believe the one guy is possibly a publisher, though I doubt a writer with his way with words, but the other guy...a psychologist? I'm not sure if my doubts about his profession came from his horrible toupee, the thick gold chain dangling on his semi-hairy chest exposed by the plunging neckline of his polyester shirt or the yellow cotton shorts he had on that looked like the same shorts the boys in my old junior high used to wear for gym class or the obnoxiously large diamond-encrusted ring on his hand that I assume spelled out the initials of his name. He looked to be in his late 50's, as if he'd lived his life in the dark recesses of a bar (playing the blues, no doubt), and as if beer were his beverage of choice.

I was trying to picture his client pool. Characters from the Sopranos kept popping into my head. Not the powerful mafia guys, but the wanna-bes.

Does he play the blues because he's a psychologist, I wondered? How much of what he was claiming was truth, WAS TRUTH?

The Mariners lost, in the end, much to the dismay of Philly and the Shrink. We most likely won't go to another M's game for a number of years if ever again. Doesn't matter, we got enough bullshit and testosterone to last us a lifetime...dude.