BOPO in Birdland

How’s everyone enjoying baseball so far this season? Orioles Magic, feel it happen…kind of?

I’ve been to a few games recently – more this year than in the last three years combined, actually. I lost my Opening Day virginity with some of my cousins and friends, and it was your standard shitshow.

My one cousin, I’ll just call her Ging (you should be able to figure out why), got punched in the arm because some guy cut the beer line and was literally begging for a fight. I believe, “Come at me, bro,” was said during the exchange. While that was happening, we realized Lardarius Webb was standing right next us, so we chatted him up. Then our hair was fondled by the 40+ age group and we ran into Kegasus. Also, my boss happened to be there – hammered drunk – with her neon orange bearded boyfriend and their friends. She insisted on continuous shots and, being the polite gal that I am, I just couldn’t turn those down. Everyone kept a good buzz going and no one was falling over or getting hoisted over security’s shoulders and thrown out on the street. All in all, a good day. And the O’s won.

Even though Opening Day was full of fun, I’d like to share my favorite (hazy) memory from Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It was July 4, 2008, one of the longest days of my life. My cousin Mac went on a Segway tour in DC and wanted to do the one in Baltimore, so his girlfriend, sister and I reluctantly agreed to go with him. This story’s not about the tour, but I will tell you that I had low expectations for riding a Segway and it turned out to be one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, especially because we had a really nerdy tour guide and chose not to listen to any of his rules or regulations. I highly recommend you take a tour of your own one day this summer.

Anyway, since we were in the city already, and there happened to be an Orioles game later that afternoon, we decided to buy some cheap seats, Wild Turkey and Jack Daniels miniatures, and go to the game. I don’t even remember who the O’s played, or whether they won or lost (probably the latter), but I do remember lots of Natty Boh, mixed drinks and hotdogs.

It started raining sometime late in the game, so we headed over to Pickles and took our alcoholism indoors.

A side-note about my family – I’m pretty sure we were all born with Glenlivet in our bloodstreams. Our grandmother still has a daily cocktail hour (even if she is dining by herself) and when our family is together, the homemade bar is always open. We like to have a good time when we’re all together (like most families) and it never fails that at least one person in the group goes above and beyond drunk to a whole new level we like to refer to as BOPO, or Black Out Pass Out.

Back to 2008.

Pickles was fun, as always. Again, I don’t recall much, just a lot of Bud Light and making fun of our Segway tour guide while waiting for the downpour to stop. After awhile, it was getting pretty late, and we wanted to go see the fireworks on Federal Hill, so we left the bar after I don’t know how many hours. You know how time gets hazy when you’re drinking.

We started on our trek toward the Hill, but then quickly realized we were on the brink of starvation and decided that going to the Towson Diner would be more advantageous than sitting our asses on a wet hill.

So we turned around and headed back to the nearest Light Rail stop, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the next train (which never seems takes long). However, we soon realized that the trains had stopped running and wouldn’t start again until after the fireworks concluded.

Lame.

We sat and waited for what seemed like days. Like I said, we’d been drinking all day and hadn’t eaten in awhile, and we were really in no condition to be out in public at this point. My cousin, I’ll call her K, decided she had to pee, but we weren’t near anywhere that was open where she could use the restroom.

Only bad things could happen at this point…

There still wasn’t a Light Rail train in sight…but there were people walking around near us. That fact didn’t deter my girl, though. BOPO K decided it would be a great idea to just pull her shorts down, sit on the metal-grated Light Rail bench bare-assed and just start peeing. In front of me, her brother, her brother’s girlfriend, the random passer-bys, and the other people waiting for the Light Rail this was happening. At first, we were laughing and then we decided to stand in a circle the best we could around her to block her, but I’m sure it didn’t work very well.

Somewhere, downtown, my cousin’s butt was on a Light Rail bench that who knows how many asses have sat on before her. What, a classy lady.

Obviously we couldn’t stay at that bench, so managed to pull ourselves together and hike up to the next closest Light Rail stop. Luckily a train was sitting there, so we hopped on and berated a still BOPO K for the 40 minute ride home. Fun fact: It just so happened that the seat K chose was for the ‘impaired’ and ‘disabled.’ How fitting.

I haven’t had an experience to top that in Birdland (let’s be honest, not many girls will just pull down their shorts in the middle of Baltimore and start peeing, no matter how drunk they are), but K managed to top herself when I was with her at a Kenny Chesney concert in Tampa the next summer. Long story short: she chugged a fair amount of Captain in the back of a pickup, dropped her cell phone in a porta-potty and threw up all over in the back of another pickup. Happy 18^th! Needless to say, her and I never made it into the concert. Meanwhile, her brother, who did make it into the concert and had a seat in the pavilion, was BOPO and decided to just start peeing on the people in front of him while Kenny sang. Somehow this feels acceptable for a country concert, though.

I could really go on forever with stories like this, but I’ll stop here. Also, I apologize if you have ever sat on a Light Rail bench downtown. But you should really know better.

What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you or your friends at Camden Yards?