Memorial Day in Wildcatter Nation

Tubesox Nation Lunch Buffet . . . All-You-Can-Eat . . . for one low price of $8.95. Or at least that's what it felt like as I combed the weedy back streets of Mission Bay on Memorial Day, channeling my inner mom and pop [insert favorite ethnicity] restaurant pamphleteer and spamming a hundred-odd wildcatter windshields with homemade flyers (free advice: a few of you might consider checking your wipers before the October rains). And it was good times, once I got past the initial flood of middle class neuroses--I'm a university graduate, goddammit, a university graduate who's old enough to worry about October when it's still May, so why am I, of all people, doing a wannabe busboy's job?--the sun had returned to San Francisco and I was energized by the steadfast refusal of Wildcatter Nation to consider any parking spot too crappy, too tight, or too far from The Big Mortgage as long as they were stiffing the management to the tune of 25 U.S. clams. And suddenly I realized that pamphleteering wasn't beneath me. Wildcatting was a righteous cause, and I was doing heroic work recruiting wildcatters into Tubesox Nation. Yes, each time I pulled rotten rubber from shatterproof glass and inserted my manifesto, I was channeling the legacy of Martin Luther and Thomas Paine, not some pimply teenager working for sub-minimum wage. Fal-lump . . . another wiper snapped into place and another flyer flapped in the breeze. I heard a mighty roar issue from The Big Mortgage, and then another, and for a moment, all was not wrong in Giants-land.

To any wildcatter who might be reading this because you received one of the aforementioned flyers: thanks for visiting . . . pardon my spamming . . . please recycle flyer or affix to refrigerator . . . enter your DOOSH in the stiff-o-meter . . . Go Giants!