Baseball & Toast Transcript
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Sara “Sweet” Rabidoux-Kelsey - Baseball & Toast
I click on the first few posts in men seeking women on Craigslist. It's pretty much all pictures of penises. [audience laughter] I'm more of a face gal myself, so [audience laughter] I'm going to keep looking. But now, I'm only going to click on posts that have good titles. It's late. I can't sleep. I should be looking for furniture. [audience laughter] But I just keep scrolling through all the sugar daddies this and no strings attached that until I see the title, Yankees tickets and a toaster. [audience laughter] Huh? I don't want Yankees tickets. I'm from Boston and I like the Red Sox. [audience cheers and applause]
But toast is my favorite food [audience laughter] I don't have a toaster in my new apartment in Brooklyn. I've had a rough time since I moved to Brooklyn. I had a terrible falling out with my very best friend, and every date I've gone on has been weird. The last guy I went out with wanted us both to wear licorice underpants. Whatever Yankees tickets and a toaster is, it can't be as weird as that. And so, I click. I'm happy to not see a forlorned wiener dangling over a nest of computer cords. [audience laughter] Instead, there's a nice picture of a brand-new toaster. [audience laughter]
The ad is straightforward. This guy is looking for that lover of baseball and toasted bread products to go with him to one of the last four games to be played at Yankee Stadium before they tear it down. He has never been there before, and he's a Red Sox fan coming down from Boston. He says, “The best response will win the ticket and the toaster. [audience laughter] The game is tomorrow.”
Now, I don't know who wrote this ad, but they wrote it for me. [audience laughter] To me, I am that lover of baseball and toasted bread products. [audience laughter] I am homesick for anything Boston, and so I have no choice but to reply. I add the basic stats, Red Sox fan. Lover of toast. Don't have a toaster. 5’7” athletic and free tomorrow, which is now, technically tonight. I attach a picture of myself, hit send and go to bed.
In the morning, I check my-- well, I check my fake email that I made up last night [audience laughter] and there's a response from him. It says, “I've won.” I'm so excited. I send him an email saying, “I'm going to get a loaf of bread.” [audience laughter] And he says, “I'll meet you in front of Grand Central Station.”
Waiting for him, I'm going back and forth between blind date butterflies and the stark realization that meeting a stranger from the internet in front of a train station is the beginning to more than one episode of Law & Order. [audience laughter] I could just buy a toaster, [audience laughter] but suddenly, he's there with this smiling face. He picks me out of the crowd, because I'm wearing a Red Sox hat. I'm not really getting a Law & Order vibe from him, so we jump on the number four train and head towards the Bronx.
We talk and laugh for the whole nine innings. It's weird. We have a lot more in common than baseball and toast. We linger for a while once the game ends. Yankees fans are coming up to us and thrusting their cameras in our hands, begging us to take their picture, because it's the last time they will ever be here. And more and more, this seems less like a blind date from Craigslist and more like old friends having an adventure.
We part ways at Grand Central. We say the things you say like, “It was nice to meet you. And if you're ever in Boston.” It's not till I'm almost home that I realize I did not receive my toaster. [audience laughter] But I get this text message from him in the morning, he's so sorry. The toaster's in his trunk. He valeted at the hotel in his car. And I'm like, “No big deal.” Although I had bought that loaf of bread. So, I write back, “LOL, next time,” figuring he's going back to Boston, and there will be no next time and I will never get my toaster.
But I'm out later that night with friends when I get another text from him. It says, “Hey, what are you doing? My friends just blew me off.” I look at my BlackBerry, and my heart's beating fast. He's still in town. Before I know what's what I'm writing him back, so did my friends, “Where should I meet you?” [audience laughter] And he writes back, “The Grand Hyatt.”
Now, my friends think it's sketchy to meet him at his hotel. While I do value their opinion, I won that toaster and I'm going to go get it. [audience laughter] In the morning,- [audience laughter] [audience cheers] -after a late checkout, [audience laughter] we get his car from the valet. He pops the trunk and hands me a toaster, still in the box, as promised. [audience laughter] We say the things you say like, “I had a really good time. And if you're ever in Boston.” He gets in his car and drives away. I have this really strange feeling like seasickness and euphoria, all at the same time. It's wrong that he's leaving me and going back to Boston without me. I feel like I should be with him. And my brain is like, “Whoa, you just met him.” But the rest of me is like, “Yeah, brain, but you're the one who brought us out with the licorice underpants guy.” [audience laughter] My brain is like, “Okay.” The rest of me has to admit, although it's embarrassing and horrifying and totally weird, that I am in love with the toaster guy, and this makes me insane.
Had you told me two days ago that I'd be standing in the street pining after a guy that I just met on Craigslist whose ad I happened to see in the middle of the night, an ad for Yankees tickets, and that I would reply to win a cheap toaster and that we'd have two of the best dates ever? I would say that's crazy. Had you told me that this guy and me would have everyone sing Take me out to the ball game at our wedding, and that 10 years later, we'd be making toast in that very same toaster, I would say that is something else.