Disclaimer: I mean no offense to anyone. This is my take, my experience, my story.

I did a thing again. Took a little trip. One thing you have to get used to when you become a widow is traveling on your own with your child and/or children. Not one of my strongest suits. Formerly anyway. I’m becoming somewhat of a pro almost 4 years later – I like to think I’m pretty bad ass at it. Others might argue. But this is my life from my perspective and if I’m not going to give myself credit, who is?

If you’re new here, I have two children – boys – 13 and 8 – and the exact polar opposites of one another. They couldn’t be more different – they share the same parents, that’s about it. The oldest is all about sports – watching, playing, studying – just all the sports all the time (I, too, love the sports). The baby of the family (I like to call him Sporty Spice) loathes sports (something we do NOT have in common). He likes fishing, Legos and watching people put Legos together on YouTube. I can get down with fishing, well I’m more of a casterman (is that a word) than a fisherman as the fish never seem to want to bite what I’m serving (sounds like my love life – hey oh!) but putting together Legos – not my jam, always do it backwards, upside down and inside out. My brain just doesn’t work that way. But he’s a Lego master! Thank goodness, too, because lord knows mama ain’t bringing much to the table. Maybe that’s why he has to watch the YouTubes…

Anywho, that was more information than you cared to hear to get to my point. We went to Philly this past weekend; the Phillies, and more specifically, Bryce Harper, being Jack’s absolute favorite were taking on the Padres and while Sporty Spice doesn’t watch much in the way of sports, Fernando Tatis, Jr. is his favorite. Killing 2 birds with one stone here – I heard somewhere that we’re not supposed to say that anymore because it’s hurting the birds feelings but I’m a rebel that way. 2023 – what a time to be alive. Now, before you get your knickers in a twist thinking I’ve planned this trip mainly for Jack, he must be my favorite, Sporty Spice hates sports, I have a trip planned later this summer that is Colt-centric – we will be going on alligator tours, hitting up Lego Land, swimming, zooing, aquariuming, just all things Sporty Spice will love. See? No favorites. They are equally my favorite children and least favorite children at any given moment on any given day. Still haven’t gotten to my point, have I? This is what happens when I take such a long writing break – but that’s another story for another day.

So, trip to Philly, 3 tickets to Friday’s nights game and Saturday night’s game. Guess what? Colt doesn’t want to go. Not surprising. But shit. I do not want to make Colt go on a trip that costs more than I should have spent because he is an EXPERT at not enjoying the moment if it is a moment he does not want to enjoy. Thank God for grandma. Now I know, in a perfect world, I should have made Sporty Spice stick to his original decision which was he most definitely wanted to go. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed the world, not even close to perfect, much like my parenting, I do my best, not even close to perfect. So Grandma says Colt can stay with her and Jack and I load up and make our way to Philly. I’m excited, a little nervous but ready to bad ass my way through the mean streets of Philly – really should have paid closer attention to the Fresh Prince’s mom and gone to stay with auntie and uncle in BelAir.

We get there on Thursday. No issues on the drive, quite enjoyable actually aside from the $24 in tolls it cost. But that beat the hell out of traffic on 95. $24 is worth my time and sanity. Philly roads are a little crazy, like they kinda go every which way. I won’t say how many almost accidents I probably caused because I don’t want my mom to worry but it was more than a little sketch. Get to our hotel, check in drop our shit and figure out our first plan. Jack collects hats (ironically he hates wearing hats but this collection is my fault – I thought it would be cool if he had a hat from every MLB team). We look at the Google maps and find a Lids within a couple miles. Of course, not knowing my ass from my elbow when it comes to Philly, the map takes us right downtown. Now I’ve lived in Denver, I’ve lived outside of Austin, I am not new to city driving, but this was a whole new ball game. Couldn’t find a parking garage to save my life, apparently the little walking man or stop hand are just decorative because them there pedestrians be crossing whenever and wherever they like, it was just chaos, mass chaos that was making me sweat, stress and swear. So I pull up the Googles again and find a different hat store away from downtown Philly. So naturally, we end up in New fucking Jersey. The hat store wasn’t a real hat store so giant bust there. We found dinner and a Target, though. Did you know you can’t turn left in New Jersey, at least this particular area. You have to turn right, go in a triangle, find a stoplight, cross the road and then turn right again, all to make a left. Super inefficient. Also, did you know shopping bags, at least in this Jersey Target, are outlawed? They just hand you all your shit and laugh at you as you try to navigate out of the store juggling your 13 item purchase. Was really fun also juggling those 13 items into our hotel room upon a (barely) safe return.

Friday comes. Game time is 6:05. Jack and I are tired and really don’t want to drive anywhere. Stadium is within walking distance (sort of) of our hotel so we decided to order food to our room and just chill, get to the game as soon as the gates open. We can see the Phillies’ stadium outside our window, looks like a straight shot from our hotel’s front door. Now a smarter woman would have researched walking to said stadium before booking her hotel but this woman just saw it was less than 1/2 a mile from the hotel and booked it. (I’m really showing my bad ass-ery here.) We had to cross 3 highway exit ramps, walk under an I-95 overpass (and you know how stable those are in Philly) and then make our way to the stadium, which was all fine in the daylight. I swore there had to be a better route leaving Friday night’s game and took us a different way. Ended up on the exit ramp under the overpass all by ourselves in the fucking dark. We survived, obviously. Jack took over navigating from that point forward. I tell you what y’all, I’m totally biased and he has flaws aplenty, but that kid is going to be one strong, resilient street-smart adult one day. He practically is already.

Friday night’s game was fine. The Phillies lost, the Phillies fans are assholes but nothing too crazy happened. I did make a joke about our extra seat and if anybody asked, we should tell them it’s for our late husband/father, we bought him a seat to enjoy the game with us, Deady loved baseball. But nobody asked about our extra seat, and nobody tried to take our extra seat. Jack wasn’t all that interested in exploring any kind of historical anything while in Philly and I was ok with it since I almost killed us more than 3 times driving there already, and we ended up getting tickets to Saturday afternoon’s game. Rookie mistake. It was 111 degrees inside that stadium on Saturday afternoon. It was a sold out game. And the fans were so rude, so crude, so mean, it was a tough afternoon. My Phillies/Bryce Harper fanatic just deflated. Started cheering for the Padres. Took off his Trea Turner jersey. Now, I did not approve of this behavior and we had a talk about it. But come on people, WTF?? Why so much hate and anger. This is supposed to be entertainment. And I know I’ve talked about this before, and I really shouldn’t be surprised. But I am. Are your unders too tight? Does your job suck? Is your family unsupportive? Why is there so much hate in your heart? Is that making your life better? I just don’t get it.

Saturday night’s game was maybe even worse. We had our extra seat. There was a family on the other side of the extra seat that weighed a collective of probably 3,000 lbs, give or take a few. No judgment here. Food is good, it’s hard to motivate to exercise, life is hard. Stadium seating is not comfortable for anyone, unless you’re like super rich and can afford the luxury box with the a/c and the server and the drinks and all the things we peasants wish we could afford just once. Now here’s why I want to know about the cooling factors of hell, because I’m surely going. The old man in the family next to us moved into our extra seat. I didn’t notice at first but Jack nudged me. I looked over, saw him and tapped him on the shoulder and very politely said “excuse me sir, that’s our seat”. He tells me he’ll move when the person comes back. I said the person isn’t coming back. He said he’d stay then. I don’t know why, maybe the heat, maybe all the negativity all day, maybe I’m just not a good person, but that made me very upset. I can feel myself turning red, my hands start shaking, my adrenaline is coursing through my body. I said “sir, that seat is for my husband and his father (pointing to Jack)” to which he replied, again, he’d move when he came back. I said (getting more agitated by the second) “sir, he’s not coming back because he is dead” to which that old fucking man had the audacity to laugh, said that he would stay in the seat then, started talking to Jack about the ball in his hand, where’d he get it, making conversation like he didn’t just laugh in my face. Trying very hard to compose myself and not Incredible Hulk all over his geriatric, rude, entitled Yankee ass, I said “sir, I paid for that seat, that is our seat, please go back to yours.” And still he continued and said “you don’t want me to sit here”. No I don’t. That’s my husband’s seat. Please move. And move he did. Which is good because I don’t know what I would have done next, all I knew was he was NOT going to sit in that seat.

Now I know I was in the wrong. I know I could have handled that differently. And I know I shouldn’t use the widow card (although, maybe it’s ok sometimes, not like I signed on to spend my life raising 2 boys alone, I thought I’d have a partner that could also be blamed later in life for fucking up at parenting, now everything is my fault). But you also shouldn’t take things that aren’t yours. If you need extra seats, you should buy them for yourself. You certainly should not be so disrespectful, especially in front of children.

Furthermore, Phillies fans (as I’ve heard) are something else. They hate everyone. Opposing teams. Their team. Their neighboring fans. Themselves I’m beginning to think. They beyond hate Fernando Tatis, Jr. I’ve never heard so much animosity towards a human being in my life. A human being nobody in that stadium knows anything about other than what they hear on SportsCenter. He got hurt. He took some drugs he wasn’t supposed to. He was punished for his choices. These fans were so harsh to this poor man just out there trying to do his job, that he took himself out of the game. My favorite was the 457 pound man in my favorite family that tried to steal my seat shouting “Tatis, you need to get back in the weight room”. Really? That’s what you think should come out of your mouth? I almost cried for Fernando (apparently we’re on a first name basis now). Can you imagine being vilified and reminded of a poor choice you made every day at work? Can you imagine being so emotionally abused by strangers that you choose to leave your job in the middle of doing your job? I know, he makes a lot of money. He’s also a human. And not a goddamn one of us is perfect. Lead with love, assholes. (Ironic, I know, because I’m being pretty rude right now).

There were billboards all over Philly: “Drug Resistant Gonorrhea Alert.” I’m not surprised.