So ends a frantic week, leading directly into dead week which is another frantic week and straight into finals, great timing for this little adventure. All complaining aside the trip was pretty good, apparently it doesn't compare to last year, but not a whole hell of a lot i can do about that is there now. Anyway, lets start from the end and Tarintino it shall we? "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" Ha ha...ok moving on. We are back on Friday of the 14, I've gotta tell all my teachers I'm peacing out for a week. Half of them don't even care which is cool, I can wait to drop physics and kick that classes ass next semester anyway, this really has nothing to do with the events I just thought I'd give you a little background. Flash forward to Monday night, we are supposed to leave for Spokane Monday night after intramural soccer playoffs. I hadn't even thought about packing until after class on Monday so I had to scramble a bit and get all my stuff together. I didn't forget anything though which is pretty amazing considering 9 times out of 10 I will forget something. Anyway now the meat of the beginning of this tale… Soccer. To some its fun, to others (me) its baffling, either way I was coaxed into playing and by coaxed I mean the conversation went a little like "Shannon wanna play intramural soccer?" "I don't know how" this conversation being with Nickey, it needs the side note that she played intramural basketball with us so "I didn't know how to play basketball" "ok" Fast forward to Monday night, we've won 2 games by forfeit and one of our own accord, not thanks really to me, I do believe I fell on my ass after stepping on the ball during one that game, might have been the other game we played where we lost...at least I think we did...i can't remember anymore...too much has happened.
Anyway...playoffs round 1...some how or another we always end up with the ALLSTAR team and by allstar, I mean the girls who somehow think they are going to relive high school glories by beating up on random sorority girls and a few others who actually know what their doing with the occasional girl who runs around like a chicken with her head cut off during games. This last girl is me. The first girls, the team we played. So all these girls are soccer allstars apparently and they play hard. Not just hard, they play like they shouldn't be allowed to play in intramural ball. So we're going through this game...pretty much getting our butts kicked cuz these girls are mad competitive and we get down to the last 2 minutes, the score is 4-0 them and Val goes in to do god only knows what...try to give us some shred of dignity and this girl...affectionately known to us as MITCH because of the back of her shirt...anyway she hip checks Val while she's midair needless to say she goes down...hard and when she rolled over everyone knew she's fucked...she heard a pop and that was that. we finish the game...of course losing...all of our girls are pissed and I'm still not sure how nobody got into a fight, but no one did and we left one girl hurt going into nationals in about 36 hours. Val was supposed to drive herself to the airport...but she did not she came in the car with Nickey, me and Becca...needless to say Becca fell
asleep by Colfax...which is what she does...she can't stay awake in cars. The drive was fairly uneventful and we went to Lawson’s. Becca crawled straight into bed...well first she flopped around on the floor for a little while and Nickey and I went to taco bell to get some grub. SO we get back and I give Val the bag of food..and she hands Nickey a taco thinking that someone would be smart enough to check the tacos before they are distributed I leave this to the two stooges...lets just say...from the kitchen I hear Nickey go "This isn't mine" and I come back to find a large bite taken out of my soft taco...I was a tad upset cuz we all know how I am about food. That was pretty much the highlight of that night...and Nickey and Val are very loud but no one can honestly be surprised by that. 5:30 am...now if you know me you know I hate the morning...this morning is no different we pack up and head to the airport and so proceeds the plain rides...2 hrs 5 hrs a stop in LAX at which point i realized that I could have gotten a visit and some in-n-out from Madre...but hadn't told her early enough...POOP! That was the extent of the excitement until we got to Baltimore Maryland. I know what you're thinking...what were you doing in MD this blog is called WEST VIRGINIA is it not? oh it is but apparently we are lower on WSU's priority list than anyone had really known...well at least not me...our "travel agent" who I like to call the lady who won’t use the internet said she could only get us a flight into MD and we had to drive 4 hours to Morgantown WV or pay $200 a piece more to get flown into some place closer...those were our only 2 options...Now for those of you who have flown before you know that there are never ONLY 2 choices. You can imagine how excited we all were well we got to the airport and people went to get the cars...while others chilled...so I think…HACKY SACK! That led to quite a few laughs and an interesting picture of me imitating a fish I have no idea why...I'd just been on a plane for 7 hours since 6 am...I wasn't really putting everything into my memory bank. At one point the sack ended up on a 8 ft random wall thing that I had to be hoisted up to get...nothing too extreme...but it should be noted...that we are not a soccer team nor are we very good at hacky sack. So starts our journey to Morgantown, West Virginia...about a half our in, its 11 pm we're hungry and decide to stop at a McDonald’s. Some people went to a little grocery store, some Pizza Hut...others McDonalds...lets just say McDon's was not the best choice ever. I walk in a few minutes after everyone else because we were in different vans. I come in to Courtney walking over to Chelsea with an interesting facial expression. The conversation ensues: "you have to come with me to the bathroom" "why" "just come here" "what is it, something gross" "yeah" "what shit all over the place" "no" a few other things I can't remember "something dead" "yes" WHAT? Yes something dead. Now what the hell is this dead thing? Courtney: "just come here" They return about 30 seconds later. its a opossum...yeah a possum I'm not writing the o cuz i don't care...anyway...the conversation that ensued led to the 3 boys that were already there taking a gander at the girls bathroom and 4 girls making great use of their camera phones... I never did see the possum because I was waiting to order before we went...I'll get to that in a sec. So Jackie comes out of the bathroom and very matter-of-factly tells the 2 workers that there is a possum in the toilet. And the man...figures goes...I'm sure it's just a diaper...to which she replies, "a diaper with eyes teeth and claws" and she proceeds to who the lady the picture on her phone...at first she's like "i cant really make it out" but she realizes we're not lying I mean FOR SHITS SAKE wtf? Well guy and girl go about their business completely ignoring the 4 people who still wanted to order finally someone asks if they can order and the lady is like oh drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, WV my god. Well I guess this wasn't WV yet but the point is these people were not the best and brightest. Anyway we finally get our food and get a call that we have to go cuz some creepy guys are around Pizza Hut freaking the others out...i'm still not quite sure what happened there but the important part of this story was the possum. On to WV...I don't know what time we got there but it was 3 hours ahead for us...so we were pretty awake and we had to be at the field at 8 for opening ceremonies. We went passed the fields and arrived just as they announced our names and ran out onto the field. The girl who sang the national anthem deserves all our...for lack of a better word, as mean as it is...pity. I mean this girl...wow. Not only did she start in a soprano voice and get airy before the high part then time came for the rockets red glare, everyone was wondering what she was gonna do for this, mind you she'd already gone flat a few times...fairly badly a and then it happened...oh she did it...she dropped a whole octave...to an alto voice...for all of 5 words and then back to airy soprano and more flats...it was interesting...and all we could do not to shit our pants laughing. Our first game was at 11 am that day we won...then proceeded to lose the next 2...this was pool play but it still sucks to lose...3 games in one day was...lets say exhausting...mind you we haven't had a real practice in 3 weeks because it has decided to rain non stop in Pullman which is cool. So we're tired and we've been up since 5 am our time. So we have a game at 11 I believe the next day. Pretty sure we didn’t do anything exciting that night next game we lose I do believe I was pretty angry at this point and fairly frustrated...one more game and we're out..but we've already matched our pre-nationals games played so as cool as that is i still would have liked to do better. The whole time Val was pretty pissed to cuz all she was looking forward to all year was Nationals and she was gonna miss it because of MITCH so she was mad we had games the next day...if we won all of them we'd play 4 all right after another we won the first one in the 8th inning because of a bunt by me and international tie breaker rules. It was exciting needless to say...but then we lost the next one in the bottom on 7...yeah so we were out. We saw Silent Hill Friday night and Becca was freaking out...it was funny...we had a few wrestling matches throughout the trip and I do believe it was Friday or Saturday that Becca decided to pick the orange fight. She ate an orange and spit it all at people a wrestling match ensued which ended in Becca putting Nickey's shoe in the toilet...not getting it wet just scaring her...and I went in there and flushed the toilet...taking the shoe out of course be she didn’t know it. While is was doing this Nickey through Beccas shoe out the window and after Becca got it Becca decided to attack my shirt with deodorant...which I was a bit disappointed in because I was HELPING HER...but whatever all's fair in war I found orange in my sweatshirt on the flight home and Becca put one in my book. Every time I went up to bat I got a song it went a little like this:
Let me here you say uh....UH...sha non i non sha non i non...I danced it was fun.
I did not even finish my tacos so i can't really get mad at Nickey.
Nickey's afraid of thunderstorms and it was hotter than shit in WV
apparently Nickey fell off the bed one night...or Val dreamed it...and val doesn't know how to stay on her side of the bed
The first night we went to team dinner at Garfield’s and you could write on the table cloths...just thinking about that makes me laugh. Nickey and I had a war...and we had some good things written down. Our waitress drew us a map of how to get to cold stone if we wanted ice cream...she called their coliseum ugly and we told her about the blue heart....ew...then Nickey thought it'd be a good joke to leave my phone number on the table cloth...only Nickey's a dork and wrote 818 - 8844...would have loved to see who she reached...and the correction was even better.
We had some pretty sweet car rides rocking out...me and Becca rediscovered that we are the same person...many many times.
So the game we won went a little something like this:
For those of you who don't know international tie breaker, it means the inning starts with a runner on second. 8th inning...they're up first...they bunt we go for the out at one cuz we need outs, then they hit a hard ball to Chelsea at third who dives at the girl who advanced and tags her out...beautiful...3rd out fly to me in center. We're up...last out on 2nd, that would be our pitcher of that game Bri...heater is up...she's 9th batter...lefty, she looks to bunt but the pitch is a ball and first and third move way up on her...so she hits away...now heather isn't known for being a huge hitter...but today...she decided to be amazing...she hits it hard at the pitcher who decides to go after bri who gets in a pickle for third...she gets out cuz her knee collapses and heather advances to second. Up comes me...I'm about to go up, knowing i'm going to bunt...1 out DUH!...and I'm thinking...WHERE"S MY SONG...then I hear Court and nic...and I dance...and then comes the bunt...not a bunt and run but i do those best...so I'm going after the first pitch unless its obviously not a strike...and it obviously was...dropped the bunt I believe down toward third base...I figure they check heather back to second...and here comes the excitement...throw to first...hits the top of the girls gloves...flies past her...heather rounds third...their getting the ball she decides to go...I'm yelling as loud as I can for her to move her ass...the throw is behind her by 2 steps she slides into home...we scream and hug and WIN! Probably the best game of my life...well at least this year for sure.
-Shannon Barratt (April 2006)
