I could be the weather girl at my local news station, because I know for certain when it's going to rain:  Whenever I have tickets to the game at Fenway Park.  Granted I only go to about ten games a year, but ten days out of 365 of dead on weather prediction is more than enough to mark the career of a reliable meteorologist.

The weathermen on the tv and internet all agree that it doesn't look good for the game tonight at all.  Thunderstorms will roll in at 5:00, and carry on throughout the duration.  Normally I wouldn't put too much faith into this, but the ticket in my hand is the omen that tells me it's true.  Therefore, I'm staying home tonight.

I'm sure many out there will tell me that's the literal definition of a fair-weather fan, but experience has told me that owners will wait until the crowd shows up and spends money on parking, parkas, and park souveniers before calling it.  I don't live close enough to the park to take the T in, so while I can avoid spending money on those last two items, the first and most expensive item is unavoidable.  Who here has thirty bucks to blow on a parking space you'll only have for fifteen minutes?  I know I don't.

The last time I can remember going to a game where it rained the whole time and they still played it through was on October 1, 2006.  Yes, I remember the date, because not only was it Trot Nixon's last game as a Red Sox player, it was also the date my experience with identity theft began.

I'd signed up for a credit card with Bank of America inside the park, because they were giving away a choice of a free Red Sox duffel bag, hat or blanket.  I chose the blanket because it was miserable outside, and since they were quizzing people about the applications they'd just filled out before handing over the loot, I filled in my real information.  I thought it'd be cool to have a credit card with the Sox logo on it anyway, for some reason.  I tied the blanket around my shoulders, slipped my rain parka on over it, and enjoyed the rest of the game.

Two months later, I have my free blanket, but my credit card still hasn't arrived in the mail.  I then get a call from Bank of America saying charges worth thousands of dollars were placed on my new credit card at several jewlery stores in Beijing.  I told them to cancel the card, and spent the next few months jumping through hoops to try and make sure the rest of my information was still secure.  This involved filling out police reports and repeatedly calling back Bank of America to tell them I was still getting statements.  They told me not to worry, that I was not being held responsible for the charges, and they were just keeping the account open for investigation purposes.  I finally quit calling, until a year later when I got a letter from a collection agency that gave me a message in legalese that roughly translated to "Pay up, or we'll send one of our goons down to your job to break your thumbs".

Eventually, everything finally seemed to stop, after I explained everything over the phone to Thumb Breakers R Us, until a couple years later when I applied for a loan for a new car.  The loan officer told me my credit looked great, except for an issue with a Bank of America credit card.  I hear this after I'd been making monthly payments for alerts to changes regarding my credit score...ugh...

So hopefully all that rambling illuminates my trauma involving rainy day games, and why I'm actually not a fair-weather fan.  The only positive thing that came from the whole experience is my freebie that I've since dubbed my "social security blanket". 

If the game ends up being played, I'll just get in my car when the fist pitch is thrown and watch from the sixth inning on.