The other day, I was enjoying a soup and sandwich with a good friend at my favorite local diner.  As I started my meal, a gentleman with no apparent common courtesy let out a massive muculicious cough.  I looked over in disgust to see if he'd hacked a black lung into his food, but I couldn't quite see because the curtain partition atop the dividing wall mostly blocked my view.  I saw that it was an old man and quickly lost interest and reverted my attention to my soup.  A few minutes later, I looked over and the man was gone.  I stood up to investigate because his disappearance was very stealth.  I soon realized that there was no table there, no chair, no person and no black lung.  On the other side of the dividing wall was an aisle-way.  I asked my friend if he'd seen the man who was just sitting there.  He said no.  I froze.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I was crazy.  A million questions about reality and all things philosophical fluttered through my perplexed little mind.  I was dazed.  Then, just before I got up and checked myself into a psych ward, my friend said, "You mean that guy?"  I turned my head to see an old man in a wheelchair swiftly rolling by.  That was just the comic relief I needed, because I would have questioned my mental stability for the rest of my life.  The laughing, however, ceased when I told my friend I was relieved to know I wasn't crazy because he responded with: "You are crazy, you're a Royals fan."

Sometimes I think being a Royals fan is a mental disorder.  It's been said that insanity is defined as repeating the same task over and over, expecting different results.  If that doesn't define you as a Royals fan, then you aren't a Royals fan.  Check your heart.  Sometimes I wish baseball fans of other teams could have a similar experience to my restaurant experience today, and experience this mental disorder.  Let's be honest, they are an exceedingly poor team with little chance of winning a World Series in the near future.  In fact, Fangraphs has Kansas City as the 4th least likely team to win a World Series title in the future.  Evidently, the Royals are so uninteresting to the outside world that they didn't even get their own write-up.  Even with that said, I find myself at Kauffman Stadium every year.  Insane.

I think I'll be okay, though.  Looking into the future (which you can do when you are bat-shit crazy), I will be 65 years old and senile with more imaginary friends than John Nash when the Royals win their next World Series.  Then I will finally be able to climb back onto my damn rocker.