As the facilities director I get to go out and buy the fun stuff, like printer ink, TV remotes, soap, and... Softballs.  So I decided that I was going to go out and get them while I was at home for the weekend.  I was all prepared to buy the softballs at Dick's on Saturday, I even had a tax exempt form for that day and everything.  So 9:00 PM Saturday night I remembered that I was supposed to go get them.  I raced to the computer and found ou that Dick's closed at 9:30.  Perfect, I grabbed my wallet, got in the car and pulled out of the garage.  Then I ran back in and got the tax exempt form.  Then I got back in the car and raced to the store.

As an aside, in Illinois, speed limits are more of a speed suggestion when you're on the expressway.  The sign says something more like, "Hey, why don't you try going 55 mph or maybe 55+10 mph or if you're really feeling lucky 1.5*55. (As an aside to the aside, don't speed it's not legal and if you get caught NEVER tell the judge that I told you it's ok)

So back to the story.  I get to the store and I find the baseball stuff.  But where are the softballs?  They must be somewhere and that somewhere needs to be my hands at the register in less than 5 minutes.  I look around and finally find the softballs.  They're sold individually in boxes.  Odd I thought, what do these softballs have to hide.  Why are they in a box.  Are they ashamed to show their face to the average customer.  As the mystery of the softballs wracks my brain I feel like I should open the box and make sure that there isn't anythiong wrong with my future purchases.  As I start to open the box, a voice comes over the intercom telling all the customers to get to the registers because they are closing.  I ask a cashier if I need to go to the customer service desk and he says yes.  So I mozy my way over and the guy tells me to get lost, he isn't open and I can checkout at a normal register.  I head over to the competent cashier and wait in line.  The purchase goes off without a hitch.  The night is looking up.  Then I go home and look at the softballs.  They are the Chicago style 16" slowpitch softballs.  We play IM games with 12" softballs.

I knew that those softballs were hiding something behind their cardboard box exterior