2061.22 Lesson Learned? Or The Haunted Bathroom? Or This Plan Was #$%#$ Part 2

[Trebro]

"Stare at that date and know your folly!"

GM Rob McMonigal was pretty sure he'd never use the office bathrooms again after this. After feeling like he spent an entire season as a GM for the GBC Johannesburg Gold, he'd finally "returned" to Yellow Springs, seemingly having woken up from a powerful lucid dream. But now there was the apparent ghost of a former Middletown player-manager, John Clapp, larger than life and emanating from a dirty toilet in a men's room stall.

McMonigal, even more frightened than after his first meeting with Niles Standish, forced his bleary, tearing eyes to look down at the date on the newspaper:

November 1, 2061.

Below it, in large type:

BLUEBIRDS MASH MONTREAL IN FOUR GAMES

"No!! It can't be!" McMonigal flung the paper across the room, the pages scattering like casual fans leaving at the seventh inning stretch. He beat his hands into the grimy floor.

"But it is."

"Nashville won again?"

The Spirit raised an eyebrow. "That's what bothers you the most?"

McMonigal looked up at Clapp.

"Kinda."

The spirit's whole body shook. Clapp looked upward. McMonigal heard him mutter, "This is impossible."

"Fine, fine. Just let me be bitter for a moment, ok? Weren't you ever mad when the Red Stockings or Waxed Mustachios or whomever kept winning all the time?"

Clapp's face soured. "This isn't about me."

McMonigal switched to a sitting position. "Then what is it about? Why I was transported into another body anyway, assuming I believe any of this is real."

The spirit wafted its way from the stall, its lower half still connected to the bowl.

"To make you appreciate what you have here in Yellow Springs."

"But I do appreciate it. I have one of the best jobs in the world. It frustrates the hell out of me sometimes, but there's no other team I'd rather be a part of, and I'm determined to make them a winner again. Working in Johannesburg was interesting, but it's not the same. I can hardly believe I lost an entire season to this, this, this - whatever this is!"

"So you don't plan to change your ways?"

"Look, you bargain basement Jacob Marley, I'm not some cold-hearted jerk who needs to learn humility and generosity." McMonigal stood up. "I don't know who designs these things, but if the goal was to make me a better general manager, why would going to a different team in a different league make any big difference? Did your bosses ever think of that?"

"Well, no, not really."

"Apparently not. Look, I probably do need to try some different ideas, I'll grant you, but this seems rather over the top to get me to do so, and I didn't even get a real chance to do that with the Gold because the rules are so different. Shouldn't I have been haunted by Vic or make a pilgrimage to Brett Golden."

McMonigal's mouth dropped open, and not just because he was trying not to breathe through his nose.

"Oh no! You absolute intangible idiot! I was supposed to meet Brett GOLDen and instead you sent me to the GOLD, didn't you?"

Clapp said nothing. McMonigal stared at him.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"No." It was barely a whisper. McMonigal started walking closer to this ghost or an avatar of the baseball gods or whatever it was that had just taken a year of his life, apparently completely without merit.

"Lovely. Now I have to walk into who knows what. We'd just hired a new Assistant General Manager and I have no idea if he's any good. WAS he any good?"

"Well, no, not really."

"How bad?"

It was Clapp's turn to cower. McMonigal was sure he was shrinking.

"How? Bad?"

"102 losses."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Wait, I'm sorry. I'm wrong."

McMonigal breathed a sigh of relief.

"It was actually 103."

McMonigal shook his fist at Clapp.

"That does it!" With that, McMonigal searched around for what he was looking for – the bathroom supply closet. He fished into his pocket and located the key.

"What are you doing?"

"The same thing I'm going to have to do starting today," said McMonigal. "Cleaning house." Opening the door, the Once, Current, and Future Yellow Springs Nine General Manager grabbed what he needed most – the toilet plunger. He wielded it like a sword of old, or perhaps a cross, ready to wage war with the undead.

"Stop! I still have more to say!" Clapp was still shrinking, slowly, but noticeably.

"I don't care," said McMonigal, who shoved the plunger onto the spirit's head.

"Make like Louisville's yearly playoff hopes and go down the drain!"

Clapp struggled a bit, but McMonigal had anger and leverage and a keen understanding of the peculiar logic of the situation. He kept plunging until Clapp's cries were nothing but muffled sounds under the rubber of his tool of exorcism.

With a triumphant flourish, McMonigal slammed his left hand down on the flush lever.

"No one tries to Dickens me," he said, staring over the bowl.

[jiminyhopkins]

The GBC is a drug. I'm trying to quit myself!