Started out with a 9-10 year old game behind the plate. After the 2nd inning, my partner, who has called for 8 years and is pretty well respected, informs me that he's not having fun so he's going home.
Oooook. Thought he was joking at first, but he really did get in his car and drive away. After some investigating, it turns out he had told the 1st basewoman to tuck her shirt in several times and she kept untucking it. Then he talks to the coach, and I saw the coach pull the girl aside and make her tuck her shirt in. Then after that half of the inning, he quit. *shrug*
So I'm a little unnerved and my strike zone shows it. I'm getting a whole lotta crap from the other teams coaches, not the team with the shirt untucker. After about an inning and a half of that, the 3rd base coach goes a little too far and keeps jawing after the rest of the coaches settle down after an armpit-high strike. So I send him home. After that, the game went shmoooooove. I was much more focused, the strike zone got back to where it should have been, and everybody was afraid to open their mouth
After that game, I had an 11-12 that went fine. Then it's time to travel to a park that we just picked up this year. Another umpire and myself are car-pooling it, and we give ourselves an hour to get to where we think should only take us about 30-45 mins. Wellll, it took us just about an hour and 15 mins. The landmark we were told to look for was some little restaurant that was made to sound like you couldn't miss it when in fact the only sign it had was one of those little arrow-shaped deals.
To make it even worse, the ump that quit on me earlier was supposed to be on the other field, so we were a man short for those games too.
Haven't had that much fun in a loooong time.