Baseball

Do you remember your mom counting down? She would say, "If I get to three, you're _______."
But she never really got to what it was that would happen at three.

"One." There would be this long pause where the smirk still lingered in my face, I can remember thinking how cool I was and how little I cared. One was the safe zone, it's all still fun and games.

"Twwooooo." This is the count that divides kids from normal and stubborn, and where I most often chose the latter, but I began to sweat it. Worried that just maybe, maybe, this time it was for real. This is where my mother would usually choose to interject my name, the way it's written on my birth certificate, into the threat. Somehow a word- my name "Jessica", which normally has this almost sort of delicate ring to it, can sound scarier than any full sentence that ever came out of someones mouth.

There's no describing three. What happens there? I can't tell you because honestly, I'm not sure we ever got that far, the mere idea of three was enough. I wonder...did she even know?


Everyone knows that in baseball (sing with me here) it's...

ONE!...TWO!...THREE STRIKES YOUR OUT!

What we tend to forget is that baseball is a game. In life, we are playing with the big boys, not the kid next to you at the game eating Cracker Jacks, and somethings call for two strikes instead of three.

This is where I am at this week, but for once I'm in my mother's shoes. Here I am, wearing those silly red kitten heels of my mothers standing in the snow on Elk Avenue at one. And to be honest I'm not really sure what happens at the end either.