I have a standard tennis workout I do when hitting against a practice wall. I will hit fifty forehands, followed by fifty backhands, followed by a hundred mixed single-bounce balls. That's a set. Then I do some pushups and squats and a few other equally dull things in between. I try to do six sets per session, so it is a routine I've become pretty competent at over the last few years.
I was in the middle of one of these workouts and hitting forehands. I found a nice groove and was striking the ball cleanly, which meant each return came right back to me so I could just pivot, prep and swing again. I had hit maybe twenty straight as an older guy, who looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies, came shuffling by on his way to a neighboring court. As he passed, he said, "It looks like you are either really beating that guy or he is really taking it to you. I can't tell which." He then gave a boyish smirk and continued his foot-scraping gait past me to meet his buddies.
i came home from work yesterday and asked if the kids wanted to go hit tennis balls. bella had a friend over so declined. anthony only likes hitting things that are not tennis balls with the racket so he was out. alex was at a friend's house but due to come home. i called over and asked if i picked him up if he'd like to hit tennis balls. he said yes so i picked him up and we headed to the courts. on the way there he said he forgot something at the house and we had to go back. almost to the courts, i said we'd stop on the way home.
then we played tennis, which means i fed him balls while i stood at the net and he hit them back. i initially got the kids interested in hitting balls by saying the object of the game was for them to try to hit me. when i reminded alex of this yesterday he said we couldn't play that game. when i asked why he said because if he hit me, he would break my glasses and i would be mad. i like this kid quite a bit. so i fed him balls and he returned them not hitting me once.
then i said we had to wrap up and head home because dinner would be ready soon. he reminded me about stopping at his friend's house. i said i didn't think we'd have time and would have to get them later. he stopped and scolded me, firmly reminding me that i said we would go and i can never break a promise. never! i paused, looked at him and said, ok, but he'd have to be quick because we were late for dinner. and, i told him i wasn't even fully stopping the car. on the way to the house, i asked him what he forgot and he said his ds lites. since alex doesn't own a ds, lite or otherwise, i figured i misheard him but didn't bother asking him to clarify. when we got to the house, alex jumped out, ran in and came running back with a sheaf of papers in hand. when he returned to his seat, i asked what he had. he said his ds lites. upon inspecting the pages, he and his friend had drawn games on the pages as if they had ds lites. all i got to say is nintendo ain't got nothing on hangin' out at a bud's house after school, with a well-worn set of crayons spread between you at the kitchen table while you try to best each other's hand drawn games in the pre-dinnertime hours.
although the scene laid out in the below image looks eerily similar to the climax of the gimp escapade from pulp fiction, and i'm not entirely sure how i should feel about that.
after getting home from our nightly trek to girl fighting park, bella and i were met at the door by a sour-faced marty. e-love can't play tennis tonight, she told me. suck. do you want to know why? damn straight i want to know why his slacking ass is dogging at the last minute on a previously scheduled tennis night because i'm getting a little fed up with it. he's at the hospital. oh.
it seems that while at an outdoor event earlier in the day e passed out in the bleachers. while his wife was tending to this he started having seizures (allow me to add that he wasn't off the hook on tennis prior to this). it would also seem that a byproduct of said seizures is he made a little wee-wee in his shorts*. later at the hospital as the doctors were in e's room discussing the issue, they repeatedly used the phrase "urinary incontinence" in discussing his condition. every time the white coats referred to this love frustratedly proclaimed from his bed, "hey guys, it's called pissing my pants, you can just say 'he pissed his pants' or if you prefer, 'the subject then pissed his pants'."
man do i adore e-love.
* now something to understand about my friend is that he rarely wears underwear. i am a great proponent of this behavior and know few sound reasons to refute the practice, until now. had e been wearing an appropriate undergarment, it would have added some bounty-like absorption power to the equation, but with this missing apparel his shorts were forced to shoulder the full aquatic burden thus making the mishap appear a little more voluminous than may have been necessary. note to self, wear thick cotton boxers when going to an outdoor dog show in st louis during the summertime.
as a side-note and to add scientific validity to this story (b/c this site is all about scientific validity), it was explained to e that the seizure occurred because after he passed out he was in a sitting position and when blood could not get to his brain, his body freaked out in attempt to get him flat. furthermore, this particular doctor said that this is also why you don't see standing, enclosed phone booths anymore. because, people would pass out in them due to heat, stuffiness, whatever and then would go into seizures because they couldn't lie flat and would oftentimes hurt themselves by hitting their heads against the glass/metal. fact, fiction or urban legend. that's for you to decide.
while i'm going to respect his request for anonymity at this time, buddy james recently found a home on the web doing that whole bloggy thing. on a recent update he was kind enough to recognize your humble host. i'm sure glad michael's name was also in this short list else it would read: influenced by troy and a litany of girl weblogs.
while i personally do not take issue of the noted company in any negative vein and while i'm fine with the amount of grunting and scratching i do, buddy's choice of wording would not serve me well among some of my more testosterone ridden mates. case in point, the other day bookguy and i were going to play tennis and he was displeased with the amount of doddering (his word) i was doing before getting out the door. when i, finally, slid into the seat next to him he looked at me and said: i'd love to know who messed up on the human assembly line and gave you a penis.
what can i write ... reliable help is hard to find.
