NOTHING SCARES OFF THE WATERPROOF PEW CREW
HARRY’S, AKA SICK BAY – In a season already saturated with superlatives, Pew’s Your Daddy endured one more Wednesday: Surviving the fiercest storm to hit Washington, D.C., since the redcoats fled their Pennsylvania Ave. bonfire to go bomb Baltimore.
The Daddies showed up in force to flog the GUCCT Somethingorothers in rain, sleet or snow. But the Geek Squad only produced four players by 6:40, when, on the verge of forfeiting, their entire team, vastly outnumbered as it was, was swept away in a monsoon. The Daddies were left alone as they tried to finish their beers, halfheartedly packed up their gear and huddled under a tree (always a smart choice in a lightning storm) in the deluge.
The Daddies were caught in a hail of… HAIL! Ice and wind and rain pelted their faces. Hell broke loose. Umbrellas were destroyed. Electronics rendered useless. Scorebooks soaked. Shoes turned to sponges.
“Me, I was scared,” said Zach “Radar” Markovits. “But Captain Dan, he was mad!”
“You call this a storm?!?” shouted the wild-eyed captain Dan “The Weatherman” Vock from a tree-top perch.
‘Twas a dark and stormy night, indeed.
So stormy, in fact, that some of the Daddies – the Mighty, Mighty Daddies – fled the scene of a softball game where unopened beer remained!
Oh, I know, I know, believe me, I know, ‘tis sad news, but I can’t spare my readers from the painful truth. Some two thirds of the Daddies disappeared into the sheets of rain, heading off in the only direction the gale-force winds would allow them. Cat “Kinky” Sutton decided to brave it on her bike. Her doppelganger, Cari, tagged along as best she could. Others joined the tourists mobs in futilely trying to hail cabs in the mess.
Alex “The Boy Scout” Parlini valiantly – but unsuccessfully – tried to warn the Daddies that standing in groups in a lightning storm is a no-no. Something about physics. Once he decided the Daddies would not disperse, he did.
But what did the true Daddies do? (True = stubborn and maybe not too bright) They gutted it out. That’s right. They outlasted the storm.
Aaron “The Full Monty” Smith celebrated by taking off his shirt. And then his shoes. When Ivan “Graybeard” Sciupac called out, “Hey sexy, you can leave your hat on!” Smith doffed his cap as well.
Mike “Bones” Bolinder celebrated his return to rain-soaked softball by making a Slip-and-Slide out of the first-to-second baseline. Alec “Different Drummer” Tyson, who weathered most of the storm doing a crazy little dance all by himself, snapped out of it and raided a nearby kickball field for abandoned playground balls. Sciupac tackled Pauline “Awesome” Vu for some reason. Rookie Kimberly “Good Intern” Leonard wondered why she ever let Vock talk her into coming out in the rain.
Melissa “Mambo” Monbouquette did something interesting too, but nobody paid attention.
That’s about the time the Hopeless Hoyas’ captain finally showed up. Not that he was ready to play softball or anything. He just wanted to make sure the Daddies were really there. That they were that crazy.
Once a second band of rain ruined the Daddies’ fun (and the beer ran out), the sloshed and sloshy softballers decided they had enough of drinking outside in the rain. So they went to Harry’s, where they drank outside in the rain. But Harry’s had one benefit: There they found their less-crazy teammates, including Tanner “Tardy” Horton Jones, Annie “No Joke” Cloke and Will “The Quiet Type” Murtaugh.
Not, as it turned out, a bad night at all.
