I was waiting in line at the supermarket today, and since I tend to grocery shop like a bachelor, I was in the express lane. I was staring off into space, having not yet had my second cup of coffee, and I happened to notice the items in the cart belonging to the girl in front of me. While she only had a few, she was buying all of them in bulk—twenty-two cartons of heavy cream, two super-sized bags of Splenda, four containers of Hershey’s syrup and two enormous bags of ice. My first thought was, “I hope my invitation to THAT party gets lost in the mail.” My second was that what I had on my hands was obviously a criminal mind, an entitled brat or someone not-so-bright. I think it’s pretty clear to anyone who isn’t one of the above that the express lane does not exist for people who are purchasing an unlimited quantity of any fifteen different items. It exists for people with a TOTAL of fifteen items, even if all of those items happen to be the same. The heavy cream alone put her well over the express lane limit. Throw in the other stuff, she’s looking at double.

It gets to be her turn and, before the guy at the checkout counter has a chance to comment on the girl’s surplus, she is very quick to tell him that “Jessica” told her it would be all right if she went into that lane. I’m sorry. What is this? Studio 54 circa 1978? Was she really dropping a name to get into the express lane? At the grocery store? Did I need to start worrying that I was only wearing gym clothes?

As if all this wasn’t enough, the girl felt compelled to talk to us. She was obviously feeling guilty about the fact that she broke a rule—rules, by the way, exist to hold society together. Either that or she felt embarrassed about the weird conglomeration of crap in her cart and wanted to explain herself. “I work at a camp,” she said. “We’re making ice cream.” As though this information would have the power to endear her to us, despite the fact that she was making me wait ten minutes to buy my New York Times and orange juice. Please. Whatever. She works with kids. That doesn’t make her a saint. She gets a paycheck. Honestly, all it did for me was explain why her t-shirt said “Staff.” That and raise a whole host of questions about what kind of demented camp she’s working for. Splenda? Now that’s just wrong.

I considered, for a moment, the possibility that this was a camp for diabetics, but then I remembered the Hershey’s syrup. Not diabetic friendly. So what’s the goal here? To fight childhood obesity? With what? Twenty-two containers of heavy cream? Or is it to simply fight childhood itself? Or maybe it’s just to cause degenerative diseases. Yes, Splenda does that. If you’re concerned about the morality of feeding kids junk, then don’t have ice cream-making as an activity. If I was a parent sending my kid to camp, and they were secretly feeding MY kids Splenda behind my back for their own good, there would be blood. Or at least lawsuits. Or a petition. Or something. Fortunately for that camp, I have determined that—more than making them Yankees fans or never feeding them Splenda—the best thing I can do for my future kids is never have them. You probably need to know Jessica to get into that camp anyway.

However, I was not terribly fazed by today’s bizarre experience in the grocery store line.  It was more or less the logical continuation to a very weird game last night.  The balks, the ejections, the overturned calls, the injured shoulders, the walk-off grand slams. It is a lot to process. To state the obvious, on a night when the Chowdas and the Rays both picked up an L it would have been an ideal night for us to get ahead with a W. It was pretty darn close, too.

David Cone, who was commentating, had a lot to say about the weirdness. With regard to the two balks called on Padilla, he was insistent that the calls were “ticky tacky.” He didn’t just say it. He said it a lot of times. Looks like somebody’s been watching Weeds. Or listening to Malvina Reynolds. Despite the bizarre choice of words, Cone had a point. To say that something’s ticky tacky implies either that it is built of shoddy materials or that it’s unimaginative. (This is not, for the record, the Tim McCarver definition. His would probably be “having the quality of something that makes a sound kind of like a clock but not quite.”)

The broad definition of a balk is that it is when a pitcher attempts to deceive a base runner. Within that definition, there are a number of smaller rules that are used to determine whether such a deception is occurring. Within the bounds of these rules, both of Padilla’s called balks were technically balks. Do I believe he was acting with the intent to deceive either time? No. And neither did Cone. So when he said the calls were ticky tacky, which is admittedly really weird, he was saying that, while the ump may have gotten the letter of the law, he didn’t get the spirit. I tend to agree.

Having said that, while you could argue that the law exists for the sake of its spirit, the only real way to make reasonable assessments is to follow the law to the letter. Rules exist for a reason, and since there’s no good way to determine intent, perhaps the only way is to use the guidelines that are pre-prescribed.

To bring it full circle, remember the girl with thirty items in the express lane at the market? Now, just imagine a world where everybody is doing that.

Ticky tacky or not, this is why we want the rules.