So, I want to think in all the turmoil, there could be, if not an excuse, than at least some acceptable mitigating circumstances for what I encountered Wednesday.

I almost forgot about this incident altogether, but thankfully, at the end of game night, drunk Kevin sent an e-mail to more sober Kevin of the next day as a reminder. The e-mail was as follows:

"Subject line: Cheese

Text: can't get pretzels, ha e to get nachos"

Now, after some hard work, I was able to figure out what drunk Kevin had been trying to say, and that traumatic story is the one I recount to you now.

 My girlfriend, Gretl*, showed up to the game a few innings after I did. When she found the group already there, she kindly brought beers for everyone, as well as hot dogs. For herself, she got a pretzel, but said offhand that she could not find a pretzel with cheese.

This was hard for drunk Kevin to understand, and now, completely sober, it's just as hard for me to understand. I couldn't accept that pretzels and cheese could not be found in all of Shea Stadium. So, because I'm 1. chivalrous and 2. because when I'm kind of drunk I like running around and solving problems, I took off down the halls of Shea, in search of pretzels and cheese.

I headed down a level to where more food was, and went to a place where I could physically see pretzels and cheese behind a common counter. After all, how hard could this be? So I sauntered up, and asked for the items.

Angry Pretzel Serving Bureaucrat: "I can't give you a pretzel with cheese."

Me: "You have a pretzel in your hand, and there's two buckets of cheese. Just put the cheese in a cup."

APSB: "I can't do that, sir."

Me: "I'll give you a dollar for the cheese. It's right there, just give it to me. It's like, infinity percent profit for you."

Silence.

Me: "I don't think you realize how good of a deal this is for you."

APSB: "It's not our policy."

And that was it for her - she refused to complete the transaction. But I could not go back without the cheese now that I'd made a big deal of it, so I found another concessions dealer a few sections over on another level, and asked a nice, if kind of backwoodsy looking lady working a counter what the deal was.

Backwoodsy Lady For Whom Teeth Are Definitely An Issue: "I don't know why they do that. What you might have to do is go to section 4, and order nachos and cheese to go with a pretzel."

Me: "You're a G@ddamn genius."

So I had to complete the task now, but at least I had a plan. I walked over to section 4, saw all the ingredients, took a deep breath, and, feeling like part of the lowest possible budget Thomas Crown Affair, I approached a new counter. This should be a breeze, but I still felt like I was pulling something off.

Me: "So yeah, I'll have one order of nachos and cheese, and...hmm, let's see...oh, I don't know...in what is a COMPLETELY UNRELATED DECISION, could I also get a pretzel?"

Low and behold, it worked. And if the new Mets ballpark of 2009 refuses to offer Pretzels and Cheese, I will spend the year rooting for the Phillies and Yankees.

*Gretl is not her real name.