Shoot Me Down

Even though I'm 30, and grew up in a very homogeneous farm town outside of Delaware (yeah, Delaware) I like to think of myself as street smart. For example, I know what weed looks like, I've keyed a car, I've seen two men fight with their bare knuckles, I've lived in a foreign country, I've been to Raging Waters in New Jersey (and somehow avoided attracting TB) and I've seen a man die - okay, that's a lie. But, what I'm trying to say is in my small 30 years I've seen a lot. And then, I went to the Dodgers game last week and felt like all my life experiences had meant nothing.

The story:

After traveling in traffic for an hour and a half my friends and I arrived at Dodgers stadium. As we entered the stadium security started to direct our car to right field, which was in the opposite direction of our seats. Not wanting to walk three miles we decided to break from the herd and try and park in the VIP section. However, as soon as we pulled away from the masses we were stopped by a security official, who told us to get back in line. Hoping for a miracle, my friend asked if we could park in the open spots in the VIP section. Apparently, this was the magic question... In response, the security guy said, while looking around like we were about to buy some drugs, "Ahh, dog shoot me down." Shoot me down? All of the sudden I felt like a complete white girl from the east coast who had never been around minorities and inner city stuff. (Oh wait)

Anyway, as he continued to look around my friend said, "Shoot me down? I'm sorry, what?" And again, he replied, but now a little bit more frustrated with our obvious stupidity, "Shoot me down." And again, we responded with confused faces. Finally, he let out a sigh and said, "You want to park there, amigo, give me some cash." Oh yes, how could I be so stupid? See I usually say "Shoot it down."

Once we understood the proposition, we scrambled to find some cash and came up with a whopping $4.00, which apparently covers the "shoot me down" cost. However, when we went to hand him the cash we made another obvious blunder. (Which again, was sort of my fault that I didn't remember the correct procedure.) Apparently, when you "shoot someone down" you don't hand them the cash like you hand it to a cashier, but how you would if you were buying C4 to bomb a building (down at your waist and let him reach into your car for it.)

So, I guess I still have a long way to go. However, and not to toot my own horn, but I am still a force to be wreckin' with when it comes to a street brawl with broken beer bottles and switch blades.