Now that AC's readership is expanding somewhat, I want to start some reader-submission entries. First up? I want your funniest Jumbotron stories. Since this is an Astros blog, let's see if we can't keep it to Minute Maid Park, or at another park when the Astros were on the road, or any minor-league affiliates with a Jumbotron. I'll start.
A couple of years ago, a friend of a friend hooked The Constabless and myself up with 2nd row seats, off the Astros' dugout. The guy next to me sits down with his significant other, and is sweating profusely. I'm a chatty guy, so I try talking to him, but he's obviously very fidgety and nervous, and is only capable of answering in one-syllable responses, or with a grunt. I write him off as a recovering drug addict and turn my attention elsewhere.
Then in one of the middle innings, after the Astros do their Kiss Cam thing, there's a "(Name), Will You Marry Me?" And I look at the guy on the Jumbotron, and figure out why he was so nervous. Yes, he was proposing to his lady.
Not content to just let him have his moment, I, then a 27-year old man, completely flipped my crap and leaned over to get in the shot. I wagged my tongue, banged my head, even gyrated a little bit. At one point, as the lady was saying yes, and The Constabless was hitting me, the new fiancee looked at me and shook her head, giving pause to the guy proposing.
I felt, and still feel, terrible. I was on the Jumbotron for so long that a buddy I hadn't seen in eight years came down from his seat in the third deck and said, "I knew that was you!"
Awful. Shameful.
That's what I'm looking for. Send an email to astroscounty@hotmail.com with your awful, shameful, hilarious Jumbotron stories.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
