Excerpt From The Dodge Ball Diaries
"Hey Ash, I signed us up for a dodge ball game!"
"Bummer. I hope you can get a refund, love button, because I'm not playing."
This was the beginning of a very long conversation which ended with Blair rolling from laughter on the ground. First you must understand that I'm generally a good sport. I've been bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing and such. I am, however, a bit of a wimp when it comes to two things...
Jumping into bodies of water from unreasonable heights (unreasonable = anything higher than the low diving board at the local pool).
and
Playing sports that consist of people getting points for throwing heavy medicine balls at my face. Call me crazy, but dodge ball doesn't seem like a sport for the brightest of humans.
After my conversation with Blair, I discovered that we may have different ideas of what dodge ball is. Blair explained that his version consists of two teams racing to the center of the basketball court, retrieving the balls, and then hurling them at each other. If you catch the ball, the opposing team member who threw the ball is out. If you get hit, you're out.
The version that I learned as a scrawny seven-year-old in Spring Glen, Utah (population = 3000), was a tad different. It went something like this. Cody Butler and his friends picked up three hard, over-inflated medicine balls from the recess closet and came to ask me and my friends if we wanted to play a game. We of course consented, thinking that the reason they asked us was because they thought we were cute. Little did we know that seven-year-old boys didn't give a flying scarecrow about how cool our overalls with one shoulder unstrapped were or how bodacious our ponytails looked with our pink scrunchies. We were target practice, not their friends. We were the enemy and they were about to annihilate us.
"Here's the rules, girls, just stand there against the wall. You can move from side to side to dodge the balls, but you can't catch them. If you get hit, you're out."
We nervously laughed and lined up for the execution against the brick wall. Some of my friends seemed to be really good at this game. I was an uncoordinated dweeb though, and I never could get out of the way fast enough. The ball came rushing toward me in slow motion. The universe was never kind enough to let it hit me in the leg or the arm. It always came wizzing toward me with perfect accuracy and landed its hard rubber imprint right on my nose. I hated those boys.
The impact didn't hurt enough to cry, but the fact that it landed between my eyes always made my eyes water. When all the girls rushed to my side and the boys looked at me like I'd just farted or something, that's when the real tears started. Dodge ball is complete humiliation. As if the damage to my pride wasn't enough, I swear my nose swelled up to the size of a balloon every time I got hit in the nose. For the rest of the day when I looked ahead or down at my fractions worksheet, all I could see was my huge nostrils in front of me. I hated dodge ball. I hated my big nose. And I hated those mindless oafs that lined us up against the wall and tried to ruin our faces.
And that's why I don't play dodge ball, Mr. Blair.
It's a simple-minded sport for seven-year-old boys.
And I know better.
"Bummer. I hope you can get a refund, love button, because I'm not playing."
This was the beginning of a very long conversation which ended with Blair rolling from laughter on the ground. First you must understand that I'm generally a good sport. I've been bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing and such. I am, however, a bit of a wimp when it comes to two things...
Jumping into bodies of water from unreasonable heights (unreasonable = anything higher than the low diving board at the local pool).
and
Playing sports that consist of people getting points for throwing heavy medicine balls at my face. Call me crazy, but dodge ball doesn't seem like a sport for the brightest of humans.
After my conversation with Blair, I discovered that we may have different ideas of what dodge ball is. Blair explained that his version consists of two teams racing to the center of the basketball court, retrieving the balls, and then hurling them at each other. If you catch the ball, the opposing team member who threw the ball is out. If you get hit, you're out.
The version that I learned as a scrawny seven-year-old in Spring Glen, Utah (population = 3000), was a tad different. It went something like this. Cody Butler and his friends picked up three hard, over-inflated medicine balls from the recess closet and came to ask me and my friends if we wanted to play a game. We of course consented, thinking that the reason they asked us was because they thought we were cute. Little did we know that seven-year-old boys didn't give a flying scarecrow about how cool our overalls with one shoulder unstrapped were or how bodacious our ponytails looked with our pink scrunchies. We were target practice, not their friends. We were the enemy and they were about to annihilate us.
"Here's the rules, girls, just stand there against the wall. You can move from side to side to dodge the balls, but you can't catch them. If you get hit, you're out."
We nervously laughed and lined up for the execution against the brick wall. Some of my friends seemed to be really good at this game. I was an uncoordinated dweeb though, and I never could get out of the way fast enough. The ball came rushing toward me in slow motion. The universe was never kind enough to let it hit me in the leg or the arm. It always came wizzing toward me with perfect accuracy and landed its hard rubber imprint right on my nose. I hated those boys.
The impact didn't hurt enough to cry, but the fact that it landed between my eyes always made my eyes water. When all the girls rushed to my side and the boys looked at me like I'd just farted or something, that's when the real tears started. Dodge ball is complete humiliation. As if the damage to my pride wasn't enough, I swear my nose swelled up to the size of a balloon every time I got hit in the nose. For the rest of the day when I looked ahead or down at my fractions worksheet, all I could see was my huge nostrils in front of me. I hated dodge ball. I hated my big nose. And I hated those mindless oafs that lined us up against the wall and tried to ruin our faces.
And that's why I don't play dodge ball, Mr. Blair.
It's a simple-minded sport for seven-year-old boys.
And I know better.
Comments
I have the same issue with soccer...I always wanted to be good at it but the ball always came at 90 mph at my face. I can totally relate to swollen face.
I will stick to tennis and softball.
I hope all is well for you guys.
Thank you for that :)
Who remembers a strange game called Wall ball? Basically, you throw a tennis ball at the wall and you have to catch it on the rebound. If you miss or drop it, you had to run to the wall and touch it before the ball hit the wall again. What do kids do now-a-days?
Anyway, I'm sorry you were so traumatized from such a fun game. It wasn't until recently, that I learned to play by the rules that Blair explained.