I’m guessing some of you clicked on the link for this post expecting to read about people dumping buckets of cold water on their heads and challenging friends and family to do the same.

I hate to disappoint you, but that is not the story you are about to read. Instead, this story focuses on an ice bucket on wheels and the trouble it caused for the Longstrike deck stand.

One of the pregame jobs working at the deck was to make sure there was ice in both soda machines and extra ice in the large ice bucket. This required rolling it to the ice machine in the buffet area next door, coming back and filling the soda fountains, and then filling the ice bucket once again and leaving it at the stand for later.

Everyone hated having to get ice.

For starters, the ice “bucket” looked more like a trash can that you might put out at the curb on trash day. Secondly, it was no easy task getting to the ice machine and back. It required crossing the deck, carefully maneuvering down the ramp to the main walkway, and then making it to the back of the buffet area to the ice machine. Then you had to make the return trip. It sounds easy, but there was once small obstacle in our way.

There was a roughly one inch lip at the bottom of the ramp. This wouldn’t have been an issue if it was because of the ramp being higher than the walkway.

This was not the case.

The end of the ramp was at least an inch lower than the main walkway and this caused problems for whoever was responsible for filling the ice that night. Going up the ramp was no problem. It was going down to get the ice that caused some near accidents and one truly memorable moment for us all.

I remember it was before a game in the middle of the season so everyone working in the stand had experience with getting ice and dealing with the end of the ramp. Except for one girl who only joined us halfway through the summer. On that fateful night, she volunteered to go for the second round before the game and no one stopped her.

She was doing well until she hit the bottom of the ramp.

Even when it was empty, that thing could pick up some pretty good speed going down the ramp if you weren’t careful. As she got to the bottom, she was moving pretty quickly and when the ice bucket hit the lip of the walkway it kept moving, but instead of continuing over the lip and onto the walkway, it fell forward. Not knowing what to do she tried to hang on and stop it and before we knew it, she was sitting on top of the fallen ice bucket and there was ice all over the ground around her. We all burst out laughing to the point where it was hard to breath – don’t worry, she was fine and she was laughing too – and then we realized something that made the moment even funnier and slightly more embarrassing for her.

Standing on the other side of the walkway in the midst of taking batting practice in the visitors’ batting cage was the entire visiting team, standing in shock and clearly trying not to laugh.

To their credit, they regained their composure quickly and got around to seeing if she needed help before we had managed to stop laughing. In the end, our supervisor scolded us for watching and laughing instead of helping – even though she was laughing too – and made one of the guys go down and help her up.

From that point on, it was usually one of the guys who was forced to make the ice runs both before and during the games. And to this day, this is one of my clearest and fondest memories from working in that stand.

Confessional: Have you ever had an embarrassing moment at work? What happened?