2014 BP Baseball, Fear and Loathing in Reno
BennyProfane
Senior Member
Warning: Drunk Posting ahead!
994 Diamondbacks (Miley) +151
Chapter 1
The worst Benny Profane story of all time.
For the most part, I try to make my stories enjoyable and humorous. As depressed as I am, I still enjoy every the life I've created for myself, and every day is an adventure. With the start of baseball season coming, I was reminded that it's the two-year anniversary of the worst day of my life, a story that almost got included in the last chapter of SM. The background is that I was graduating college, but I had gotten out of a horribly toxic relationship, and I had no job lined up, and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wound up driving around North Dakota in my Toyota for a few months, subsisting on a box of MREs. Before that, I had decided to give myself a graduation present. Seven baseball games, in seven games, in seven different stadiums. I had bought a week pass on Greyhound, and it worked out perfectly that I could take the night bus between each city, sleep on the bus, and take a GI shower in the station when I got there. The itinerary was day 1, Milwaukee, day 2, Wrigley field, day 3, Cleveland, day 4 Yankee stadium, day 5 Baltimore, Day 6 Cincinnati, and day 7 Comiskey, before taking a night bus back to Milwaukee.
I hadn't seen a doctor in three years, so just for the sake of it, I went to a general practitioner in Milwaukee a few days before leaving. The morning of the first Brewers game, he called me and told me that he needed to see me in my office and that it was "very urgent".
I'm basically in perfect health, so I didn't really take it to mean anything, probably just that he needed to redo one of the tests. I got to his office, and he had all the paperwork and results from my visit. He went over each of them, telling me that what I already knew, that I was in perfect health for a 33 year old. Finally, there was one sheet of paper in his lap that was face down.
His mood became very somber, and the tone of his voice was the kind you'd expect a person to use as he was telling a patient that he only had six months left to live. He spoke very slowly and deliberately
"There was one very serious problem, Benny. It was with your blood test. There's no easy way for me to tell you this, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it. You tested positive for HIV/AIDS. I'm very sorry."
Ten second pause.
"Wait, WHAT? Doctor, that's absolutely impossible. I don't have HIV/AIDS. It's impossible."
"Well, it isn't impossible, Benny. This test is very reliable."
"It IS impossible. I can't!"
"Benny, the test we gave you is the most cutting edge test for HIV. It has a 99.9975 percent accuracy rate. Do you understand what that means? If we gave the test to 40,000 people, it's going to be wrong ONCE. Do you really think you're the one in 40,000?"
"That's...I don't care....look, it's just impossible, ok?"
"I understand why you feel the way you do, but there are treatment options. This isn't a death sentence, but the next year is going to be very difficult. Why don't we book an appointment for next week, I'll run some more tests, and we'll go over your options."
"No, I'm not going to schedule an appointment because this is a mistake."
"Ok, well, let me ask you this. When was your last AIDS test?"
"Um......three years ago."
"And you came back negative?"
"Yes!"
"In the past three years, how many times have you used needle drugs, like heroin?"
"NONE!"
"You had to think about it, are you sure you're telling the truth?"
"YES"
"In the past three years, how many men have you had sex with?"
"NONE, AND DON'T ASK ME IF I'M SURE I'M TELLING THE TRUTH."
"Have you been to Africa in the last five years?"
"No."
"How many blood transfusions have you had in the last five years?"
"Zero."
"In the past three years, how many women have you had unprotected sex with?"
Ten second pause.
"I'm thinking.....unprotected....um....zero."
"Well, then by process of elimination, we've reached the answer. How many women have you had protected sex with in the last three years?"
"Um...well.....two."
"You must have gotten it from one of them."
"No way. The first one was a girl from New Orleans what I was fwb with. Her name was Lisa. She wasn't a nun, but she had had sex with fewer than ten guys in her life."
"Ok, you probably didn't get it from her. Who was the other one?"
THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
"Her name was Renee. We lived together for a year and a half."
"I see. And was she.....promiscuous?"
"She pretty much fucked the phone book. But still, she got tested."
"Did you ever actually see the test results?"
"No, but she TOLD me she was clean."
THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
Break from the dialogue to give some background information to explain my thought process. My ex-gf, Renee, was an aeronautical engineer with a firm in Milwaukee. She spent her days designing blueprints for airplane engines. She was a 5'9" brunette with perfect tits, working in an office filled with geeky middle aged men. For whatever reason, she wound up becoming the executive fuck towel. She pretty much fucked every single vice-president with the company, and there 18 of them. The way she put it was horrible. It was something like, "Well, I slept with all the Irish ones. The Jewish ones tried to, but I'm not attracted to Jewish men."
I checked the company directory, and fourteen out of the eighteen vps had last names like Kennedy, and there were four Goldsteins. The thing was, the company had an office in Brazil, and I knew from listening to her stories that the vps were always going down there and fucking prostitutes in Rio. It was a pretty simple brain equation from there. One of them obviously got it from a hooker down there, and gave it to her. They never used protection with her because men over 50 can use the lie of, "Oh, I don't need to use a condom. I've had a vasectomy."
I must have somehow gotten it from living with her.
I walked around in a fog the next 48 hours. I wasn't capable of eating or sleeping, but I still made it onto the bus and wound up in Cleveland. I spent eight hours talking to an old homeless man on the bus from Chicago to Cleveland, and he told me stories about his time in Korea. I wrote out a will later that day, leaving everything to my father.
Finally, I made it to New York and started wandering around Manhattan. The Yankees were playing the Devil Rays (I think it was Price against Sabatthia, and I had nosebleed seats that I had got off stubhub.)
My plan had been to walk from lower Manhattan to the Bronx. (Don't laugh, I had never been to New York, and I thought that was feasible.) The bus got in just after three, and I asked a policeman where the nearest hospital. It was somewhere near Columbia.
An incredibly flamboyant gay phlebotomist took a vial of blood, and I sat in a drab waiting room for the next hour.
The doors opened, and a doctor walked out towards me, very slowly, with a very gaunt look on his face.
"Mr. Smith?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I've been over your test results, and I don't see anything wrong. I would have to speak with this doctor in Milwaukee in case he's somehow seeing something I don't. But your blood is completely clean. It would appear he misdiagnosed you."
For the first and only time in my life, I hugged another man. Then I spent the entire day, wandering around from bar to bar getting as drunk as I could.
The doctor in Milwaukee called me again when I was in Chicago. I saw his number on caller id before I answered.
"Benny...um....um....I think I owe you an apology."
"Oh really?"
"Yes. We've investigated, and it seems like your test results were placed in the wrong file. Two different people named Ben Smith had their blood sent to the laboratory that day, and somehow the technician wrote the other one's results in your file. I'm pretty embarrassed about this and I'm sorry for everything."
Kind of a random story, but I'm pretty sure I'll think about it the start of baseball season every year for the rest of my life. And I'll probably spend the year fading Kershaw in all his road starts.
994 Diamondbacks (Miley) +151
Chapter 1
The worst Benny Profane story of all time.
For the most part, I try to make my stories enjoyable and humorous. As depressed as I am, I still enjoy every the life I've created for myself, and every day is an adventure. With the start of baseball season coming, I was reminded that it's the two-year anniversary of the worst day of my life, a story that almost got included in the last chapter of SM. The background is that I was graduating college, but I had gotten out of a horribly toxic relationship, and I had no job lined up, and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wound up driving around North Dakota in my Toyota for a few months, subsisting on a box of MREs. Before that, I had decided to give myself a graduation present. Seven baseball games, in seven games, in seven different stadiums. I had bought a week pass on Greyhound, and it worked out perfectly that I could take the night bus between each city, sleep on the bus, and take a GI shower in the station when I got there. The itinerary was day 1, Milwaukee, day 2, Wrigley field, day 3, Cleveland, day 4 Yankee stadium, day 5 Baltimore, Day 6 Cincinnati, and day 7 Comiskey, before taking a night bus back to Milwaukee.
I hadn't seen a doctor in three years, so just for the sake of it, I went to a general practitioner in Milwaukee a few days before leaving. The morning of the first Brewers game, he called me and told me that he needed to see me in my office and that it was "very urgent".
I'm basically in perfect health, so I didn't really take it to mean anything, probably just that he needed to redo one of the tests. I got to his office, and he had all the paperwork and results from my visit. He went over each of them, telling me that what I already knew, that I was in perfect health for a 33 year old. Finally, there was one sheet of paper in his lap that was face down.
His mood became very somber, and the tone of his voice was the kind you'd expect a person to use as he was telling a patient that he only had six months left to live. He spoke very slowly and deliberately
"There was one very serious problem, Benny. It was with your blood test. There's no easy way for me to tell you this, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it. You tested positive for HIV/AIDS. I'm very sorry."
Ten second pause.
"Wait, WHAT? Doctor, that's absolutely impossible. I don't have HIV/AIDS. It's impossible."
"Well, it isn't impossible, Benny. This test is very reliable."
"It IS impossible. I can't!"
"Benny, the test we gave you is the most cutting edge test for HIV. It has a 99.9975 percent accuracy rate. Do you understand what that means? If we gave the test to 40,000 people, it's going to be wrong ONCE. Do you really think you're the one in 40,000?"
"That's...I don't care....look, it's just impossible, ok?"
"I understand why you feel the way you do, but there are treatment options. This isn't a death sentence, but the next year is going to be very difficult. Why don't we book an appointment for next week, I'll run some more tests, and we'll go over your options."
"No, I'm not going to schedule an appointment because this is a mistake."
"Ok, well, let me ask you this. When was your last AIDS test?"
"Um......three years ago."
"And you came back negative?"
"Yes!"
"In the past three years, how many times have you used needle drugs, like heroin?"
"NONE!"
"You had to think about it, are you sure you're telling the truth?"
"YES"
"In the past three years, how many men have you had sex with?"
"NONE, AND DON'T ASK ME IF I'M SURE I'M TELLING THE TRUTH."
"Have you been to Africa in the last five years?"
"No."
"How many blood transfusions have you had in the last five years?"
"Zero."
"In the past three years, how many women have you had unprotected sex with?"
Ten second pause.
"I'm thinking.....unprotected....um....zero."
"Well, then by process of elimination, we've reached the answer. How many women have you had protected sex with in the last three years?"
"Um...well.....two."
"You must have gotten it from one of them."
"No way. The first one was a girl from New Orleans what I was fwb with. Her name was Lisa. She wasn't a nun, but she had had sex with fewer than ten guys in her life."
"Ok, you probably didn't get it from her. Who was the other one?"
THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
"Her name was Renee. We lived together for a year and a half."
"I see. And was she.....promiscuous?"
"She pretty much fucked the phone book. But still, she got tested."
"Did you ever actually see the test results?"
"No, but she TOLD me she was clean."
THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
Break from the dialogue to give some background information to explain my thought process. My ex-gf, Renee, was an aeronautical engineer with a firm in Milwaukee. She spent her days designing blueprints for airplane engines. She was a 5'9" brunette with perfect tits, working in an office filled with geeky middle aged men. For whatever reason, she wound up becoming the executive fuck towel. She pretty much fucked every single vice-president with the company, and there 18 of them. The way she put it was horrible. It was something like, "Well, I slept with all the Irish ones. The Jewish ones tried to, but I'm not attracted to Jewish men."
I checked the company directory, and fourteen out of the eighteen vps had last names like Kennedy, and there were four Goldsteins. The thing was, the company had an office in Brazil, and I knew from listening to her stories that the vps were always going down there and fucking prostitutes in Rio. It was a pretty simple brain equation from there. One of them obviously got it from a hooker down there, and gave it to her. They never used protection with her because men over 50 can use the lie of, "Oh, I don't need to use a condom. I've had a vasectomy."
I must have somehow gotten it from living with her.
I walked around in a fog the next 48 hours. I wasn't capable of eating or sleeping, but I still made it onto the bus and wound up in Cleveland. I spent eight hours talking to an old homeless man on the bus from Chicago to Cleveland, and he told me stories about his time in Korea. I wrote out a will later that day, leaving everything to my father.
Finally, I made it to New York and started wandering around Manhattan. The Yankees were playing the Devil Rays (I think it was Price against Sabatthia, and I had nosebleed seats that I had got off stubhub.)
My plan had been to walk from lower Manhattan to the Bronx. (Don't laugh, I had never been to New York, and I thought that was feasible.) The bus got in just after three, and I asked a policeman where the nearest hospital. It was somewhere near Columbia.
An incredibly flamboyant gay phlebotomist took a vial of blood, and I sat in a drab waiting room for the next hour.
The doors opened, and a doctor walked out towards me, very slowly, with a very gaunt look on his face.
"Mr. Smith?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I've been over your test results, and I don't see anything wrong. I would have to speak with this doctor in Milwaukee in case he's somehow seeing something I don't. But your blood is completely clean. It would appear he misdiagnosed you."
For the first and only time in my life, I hugged another man. Then I spent the entire day, wandering around from bar to bar getting as drunk as I could.
The doctor in Milwaukee called me again when I was in Chicago. I saw his number on caller id before I answered.
"Benny...um....um....I think I owe you an apology."
"Oh really?"
"Yes. We've investigated, and it seems like your test results were placed in the wrong file. Two different people named Ben Smith had their blood sent to the laboratory that day, and somehow the technician wrote the other one's results in your file. I'm pretty embarrassed about this and I'm sorry for everything."
Kind of a random story, but I'm pretty sure I'll think about it the start of baseball season every year for the rest of my life. And I'll probably spend the year fading Kershaw in all his road starts.
Comments
Poker hand:
Sitting at a 1-2 nl game in Reno. Mostly nits and one guy about my age who seemed like more than just a solid abc player. Here's how the hand went:
Utg and utg +1 fold. Guy about my age raises to 7. Folded to the button who calls. Small blind folds. I'm in the big blind with 9s9d. I call.
Flop comes Qh8s9h. I lead out and bet fifteen. Preflop raiser mini-raises me to 30. Button folds. I re-raise 50 more. Raiser thinks for three seconds and calls. Turn comes Js. I think it over and check. He thinks for ten seconds and checks back. River is Qc. I lead out for 100. He thinks for ten seconds and raises all-in, 231 more. What is the correct play for me?
I would def call, it's hard to have 4 queens. He shouldn't have qj. Q8 is most likely hand to have u beat. I think there's enough chance he has 88 or is bluffing for u to call.
I called him and he turned over QJs. I don't think I've ever folded a full house, but as soon as he turned his cards over, it seemed obvious that I should have been able to get away from it.
909 Rockies +136
912 Dbacks +120
917 Blue Jays +152
luck
960 Astros +131
Ytd 0-5 -5 units
The next two days are going to be exceptionally strange. Will type it up and post it here asap.
922 Orioles +103
926 Astros +144
922 Blue Jays +125
923 Rangers +134
926 Astros +151
Every dog looks good. Seriously, my capping must be flawed because every single underdog looks like the nuts. Betting small corpars on these where I can pick them up.
956 Dodgers +110
957 Braves +138
959 Cardinals +136
974 A's +111
975 Rangers +163
978 Astros +136
903 Marlins +198
914 Yankees +100
918 CWS +114
Meaning?
Listen I didn't mean anything bad about that, to see you and now putting your face and mannerisms to all those posts, I just kinda of get it.
good luck going forward and am personally leaning over in that Yankees game.
I work with a partner who has been a professional for more than twelve years. He bets a certain way, and I bet in a slightly different way that is less volatile. He actually spends less than an hour a day with handicapping and actual betting. I spend more time on things if for no other reason than that I actually enjoy baseball. The basic theory is that starting pitchers are overrated by the market, and some of them have reputations that vastly exceed their performance. The Marlins/Nationals game was a perfect example of my system. Miami is an improving, young team that the market hasn't caught up to. They're playing a completely average team with an overrated starting pitcher. And I got a number that was much better than what pinnacle was offering. I didn't make the corpar to the over since procap liked the under, and I respect his opinion. Also, I am autistic, so I'm no good at public speaking. I'm just making youtube videos like that since it's fun and I wanted to show off the suite I was staying in.
The handicap
So this is, what, you taking a shot at his autism? WTF is the matter with you?
Bullshit. "Now I understand everything" and "I just kind of get it." *That's not referencing his picks or critiquing a play or his record keeping or anything, that's making a comment about him as a person.
I'm done here, but taking shots at the guy is pretty out of line imo.
Benny, if you read this ,on my father, it had nothing to do with the autism. Never entered my mind.
Benny may or may not have been offended, I don't know. But I doubt I was only one who thought that you were taking a shot at him. If it wasn't about his autism or him not fitting your definition of normal, I don't know how else to take the phrases that you used.
Now I'm done in the thread.
Good luck going forward judging people by a 10 minute video.