Project Yancey: Episode 10: Doug, Mayor for a Day

Okay we get off this episode on a wrong note Doug, field trips are boring?  What kind of 11 and a half year old doesn't love to get a day off of school because of a random field trip, I don't care where it is it was always accepted with open arms.  But anyways Doug did like his most recent one, to go out for Student Government Day and follow a government official to see what they do.  But the drag is the part that they need to write a paper, but oh well it's a day off of classes anyways.  The government officials are chosen randomly from a box and everyone is getting jobs that they would enjoy (Sheriff Roger anyone?), but Doug is a little frightened by his, he got the Mayor.  It is true that Doug isn't exactly leadership material, but he shouldn't be so bummed, well at least not until Mr. Bone tells him his paper better be good, or else it's going on his permanent record!  Doug breaks into daydream land as a television news interviewer with the Honorable Mayor Robert "Bob" White, when he is pulled out of his trance by the Honorable Mayor Robert "Bob" White, and his first question is answered with the useless vacillation typically seen in politics.  But the cool thing is the Mayor has an awesome office.  The Mayor is a busy man as the telephone interrupts Doug's first question, "what do you do?"  After some awesome gadgetry, some more pressure from Mr. Bone, and some more daydreaming, Doug gives his interview a second chance, but the phone keeps on ringing.  It appears that Mr. Swirly from the ice cream plant has had some problems with cooling, and there will be no ice cream for Student Government Day! Gasp!  This sends a nervous Mayor White running out of the room to ask his wife's advice and Doug alone in the mayor's office.  Try as he might, Doug cannot resist the urge to sit in the big guy's chair, and even answer his phone!  It's Mr. Swirly again, the cooling fans are back on but there's a major issue, a bunch of chocolate chips are gonna crash into the fans, and he needs to know what to do!  Doug decides he should let the chips hit the fan, which turns out would chop up the chocolate chips and throw them into the ice cream, making Chocolate Swirly (Doug's favorite) and like that Doug had saved the day!  This is when Mayor White returns and the press (namely Patti Mayonnaise) follows to get a quote about Doug for saving the day.  Everything turned out well for Doug, and he even got a free box of Chocolate Swirly from Mayor White.

Tasty Chernobyl.

Oh jeez, me with responsibility and leadership?  The closest I've ever come was I was the upset winner of my middle school Vice President seat over a popular kid.  I followed this fantastic campaign (topped off by my speech being Enrique Iglesias's song "Hero" rewritten and sang by me about the Vice President race), with as my 8th grade year book says "You are the worst Vice President ever!!!" and I most definitely was.  I've also been for two years the captain of my intramural slow-pitch softball team, which basically means I send out emails of when games are.  So in neither of those situations have I actually had much decision making experience.  Even in the realms of friendly plans and relationships, I've always seemed to defer decision making to the others and just kinda go with the flow.  But there has always been one situation that I have always wanted to make the decisions, and to my memory, I've never fully had it.  Years ago when I used to play baseball I was a catcher, this was a pretty good position for me as even though I was never a big kid by any means, it was a good position for someone with a high baseball IQ.  I like to think I had(have) a pretty good baseball IQ, and I was also not too bad at calming down a pitcher when they got a little flustered.  But I never got the opportunity to call the pitches myself, I merely was the relay from the coach to the pitcher.  I want to call those goddamn pitches.  So this isn't as much of a story or an experience as it is me stating an item on my bucket list, I want to catch one more ballgame, and I want to call the pitches.  To celebrate this I'm gonna post two of my favorite catcher moments from movies Rube Baker, and below the #1, the great Crash Davis!