Jun 5, 2004

all the ladies at work are talking about their kids and what kind of sports they play. i never played any sports when i was little, except for that one sorry year in softball. in high school, i also avoided sports. i briefly considered joining the frisbee team in college, but, let's face it, who wants to play frisbee all the time? that's the kind of "game" that you can play once a summer, every third summer. like croquet or horseshoes. i just can't get into activities like that, unless they involve sandwiches and some kind of ball boy. the sandwiches would be for eating, the ball boy would be for general amusement.

all this talk about sports makes me think that i'm not well rounded, because i never did anything active when i was little. my mom and i used to set up the old plastic bowling pins in the basement and roll down the little plastic lettuce-head ball that came with it. that was always relatively fun until we got sick of setting the pins up again after every turn. i needed a pin boy is what i needed. my cousin and i would play tennis once in a while when we were in perhaps fifth or sixth grade. really, we played twice, each time for ten minutes. then we'd go home with slurpees and get out the legos. legos: fun. tennis: not so much.

at least, if a kid doesn't play sports, he/she/it should play an instrument. i don't know how to play any instruments. i'm not even sure of the names of most instruments. is it a banjo or a xylophone? beats the crap out of me. one thing for sure: it's not a sandwich.

i did try to teach myself guitar once. i learned three chords in three days and then dusted my hands of such nonsense and turned to conquer other things, such as making sure my rental movies got back on time and complaining about the lack of gatorade in the house. "why do you need gatorade?" mom would ask. "it's a drink for *athletes*." that's when i would throw a small object at her, such as a typewriter. it was her fault i wasn't well rounded. people have to be shaped when they're young, by their parents.

which is why, when i have kids... i'll teach them everything i know about... or at least i'll let them drink all the yoohoo they could possibly... maybe they could learn trombone while competing in rugby... well, we'll always have the sandwiches.

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