Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Last week Rob called me with very exciting news. He'd bought tickets for us to go see the Potomac Nationals (our local minor league baseball team). Stephen Strasburg was pitching. For those of you who don't know, he's the pitcher for the Washington Nationals who is currently in rehab. Anyway, this is exciting news for our little suburb! We are all excited and by Friday it's a party atmosphere. The game started at 7:00pm and was completely sold out. I planned to get there at 5:00, stack out our grandstand seats and wait for Rob. The girls and I went to the pool in the morning and by 4:30 were ready to leave and get ready for the game. Caroline took the car keys to unlock and I helped Lily get dressed.

As Lily and I left the pool, we ran into a white faced Caroline holding nothing. Oh man! I knew this was going too well! I thought she'd locked the keys in the car, but remember my kids are unique, instead she'd dropped them down an 8 ft deep sewage drain. There was no need to scold, she felt horrible. After many phone calls and the stellar problem solving skills that I have developed after years of just these sorts of screwy situations, I had a plan.

My wonderful friend came and picked us up. She drove us home and waited while we changed. Luckily, she lives right across the street from the stadium, so she dropped us off on her way home. The stadium was already packed at 5:30! The highlight was the the mascot, Uncle Slam, signed Lily's little stuffed Uncle Slam. She was over the moon. We spent the next hour and a half sitting in the hot sun with some very polite and some not so polite people. Finally the game started. Rob had a ball keeping track of how fast Strasburg was pitching (at one point he threw the ball 99mph). He was finished pitching by the 3rd inning. By that point the beer was flowing and we figured it would be best to leave. Rob and I went home and grabbed a flashlight and the tree trimmers to try to fish the keys out of the drain, but no luck.

The next day we used our best MacGyver skills and tried to get them out with string, magnets, and coat hangers, but still no luck! It rained very hard the rest of the weekend and by Monday they were washed away. The bummer of it all is it will cost $140 to replace the car key. Caroline is going to babysit for us to pay off the cost.