What the hell was I thinking?

A lot of times Christine will ask me why I saved certain stupid items at my parents' house. I beat her to the punch when I found I had saved a whole pack of MLB chewing gum, as well as an empty pack that had the Phillies logo on it. I'm sure this was packed away well before I met Christine and the Phillies meant anything to me.

There are also a couple of Red Sox key chains, which I may place in my new cubicle at work. Everyone thinks I'm weird because I have no decorations up.

That Yankees ticket represents a good story. Someone - possibly an aunt - had a bunch of tickets to the 1993 home opener. Stupidly, I went with my sister instead of my brother. She's a bit more timid and cautious.

We left long before him - maybe even three hours before the game started. From my parents' house, the ride takes 15 minutes with no traffic. But there was plenty of bumper-to-bumper traffic. We sat and sat and sat and then saw my brother blow past us by riding on the shoulder.

We finally made it as the game started, but there was no parking within a mile of the stadium, and my sister was too scared to park her car on the street. We turned around to go back home and had Wendy's at the mall instead of seeing the game.

I thought I blew my only chance to go to a home opener, but seven years later, Christine and I went to the Phillies home opener against the Mets. The Phillies won 9-7, but we don't remember anything from the game - except the crowd with divided loyalties was quite raucous and drunk. Christine got hit with a beer. Ah, the good old days at the Vet. Things like that would never happen at Citizens Bank Park. Oh wait. There was this, and this.

Administrative: We have to hit the road early today, so if the Phillies did something stupid last night like signing Nomar Garciaparra or Moises Alou, we'll have to catch up tomorrow.

P.S. Greg just tried the chewing gum. I thought he broke his front teeth because the crunch was so loud when he bit into it. He quickly spit it out and ran for a drink. His verdict? Doesn't age as well as baseball card bubble gum.