I knew that coming to umpire school would be a challenge — that’s part of the reason why I did it.  In addition to the normal challenges of learning how to umpire (which is hard), I knew that I would be under a certain level of scrutiny as a woman, and that there would probably be some comments or situations that would crop up.

But here’s what I didn’t anticipate: no one gets my references.

We were introducing ourselves the other day in a small group and I wanted to say “hi, my name is Stacy and my interests include cuticle care and the E network” but no one would have gotten it and then they would have thought my name was Stacy.  No one understood what I was referring to when I said “way harsh, Tai,” and no one got it when I said “on Wednesdays we wear pink,” so going to a tertiary character in Pitch Perfect was NOT going to fly.

The good news is that we share the language of baseball.  I’ve met Cubs and Red Sox and Kansas City Royals and Cincinnati Reds fans and there is even another Giants fan here, although I haven’t had a chance to say hi to him, yet(1), and we can talk about last season or the upcoming season or baseball rules or what have you and it’s all good.

But I wish I could say

about the tests we took today and have my classmates understand that I’m not just being an arrogant bitch.

~~~

(1) I was way far behind him in line for dinner and you do not even suggest you might be cutting in line in front of a bunch of umpires-in-training. TRUST.