Time out.
That's what the Christ-like referee marquee tries to warn me before I enter the retro-yuppie "sports club." It is 2010 and the multi-aged patrons are reclining in red and blue leather sofa-chairs with PC's attached decked out in their favorite corporate sponsored "athletic" wear. Two sweat-pantsed, 30 year-old, college-students-for-life are seated next to me. She's wearing a ditzy Dallas Nike's cap and Blockbuster's T-shirt. He's wearing a blazing blue shirt with white, movie ticket logo with a screaming orange "The Videos" streaked over it. They must be from Buffalo. It's probably their first time here because they've been searching way too long for the dice icon on their PC to place a bet.
I don't gamble. Nor do I select any of the sportswear, savings plans, and paraphernalia services at my fingertips. I gave that up when Tiger Stadium became the last major sports arena to change it's name to a corporate one. After that it was only a matter of money and time before corporate sponsors became the names of the teams themselves.
With my mini-football-shaped mouse I click on "menu" and order a seven dollar small-mouth bottle Bass so I can sip it slowly throughout the last quarter of my GM-Microsoft game. The Hard Drives have just gone ahead of the Saturn III on a broken play and I feel the usual scripted doom that accompanies every trip to this cyber-stoned spectacle. Cheers quickly erupt in select sections of the room where sofa-chairs are watching the in-state Fleet-Shawmut rivalry, after the Money Markets just tied the University Savings Packages with a 30-yard touchdown pass. A win for the underdog Shawmut would be their greatest victory since their failed merger with Fleet Bank in 1998. But I could care less because I've never been a big fan of Boston sports. (Except during the strike-shortened 2002 season at newly built Funway which fielded a team of sports journalists from the Globe and Herald--Ryan was a hoot.) The runner comes by with my small-mouth Bass, a bill for the Bass, and an invoice for the invoice. Ten dollars.
"Why is it that every time I come here my team loses?" comes out of my mouth.
"We like to reserve victories for our more regular patrons." The runner paused. "Plus, you don't gamble enough."
"Oh."
"Just kidding. Enjoy the game!"
I transfer ten dollars from my Shawmut account to the referee icon on the corner of my screen and suck back beer through a small hole. While some old geezer rants conspiracy theories about sports being a microcosm of life and while another High Speed commuter rail threatens the building again, I escape. Just as my team calls it's last time-out.
