Alice Plays Dirty, But Not That Dirty

I've played an embarrassingly high number of pub games over the course of the previous seven days and won exactly zero. Darts - bad aim. Foosball - too many handles, not enough hands. Pool - the stick is unnecessarily long. Ping pong - a person needs cat like reflexes to smack a ball that fast.

I'm a lot of things but a pussy cat isn't one of em'.

Throw a few beers and a vodka cranberry in that mix and I go from worse to worser. So I wear a mini-skirt and hope that if nothing else I can distract some people while I cheat a little to help my cause. 

I've never been good at any sport, except golf and that was once upon a long time ago. In fact, I'm not even sure what you can consider a sport and what you can't, really. Like golf. And ping pong. Sports?

Not a clue.

I generally say if it's televised on Sports Center in tournament or championship form then I'm calling it a sport and that's final.

My long non-career in athletics started the summer between my 4th and 5th grade years. I awoke at an ungodly hour, rode my pink banana-seat bike to the community swimming pool and plunged into a cold sea of failure each and every weekday morning.  I would then make the 3-block trek home, wet towel around my neck and silver handle bar streamers flapping in the wind, feeling hopeful about Saturday's meet against whichever rival swim team we would be competing against. Only to receive no better than a participation ribbon.

I should have known then. But my parents clearly found my flailing around like a hamster in the water way too amusing to discourage me from returning year after year.

In the 7th grade I made it through almost 15 minutes of cheerleading "pre" tryouts before blasting out of the gym and walking home in tears over my seemingly unique 10-year-old girl inability to perform a cartwheel or anything that resembled one.  The closest I got to cheer leading from that day on was in front of the full length mirror  on the back of my bedroom door.

Hey, a girl can dream.

I made the middle and high school basketball teams. Although, out of the sixty or so total games of that era, my total playing time could probably be calculated by a 2-year-old with an abacus.

Because I apparently just can't take a clue when it lands on my head, I tried out for volleyball and was (politely!) asked to keep score instead. Which I did and did quite well if I do say so myself.  I'm proud to report that we had a great season and I could rattle off stats to the school newspaper reporters like nobody's business.

Take that, Sports Center.

And then there was golf.

Oh, sweet golf.

I was good at golf, people, really good. Not hole-in-one good. Not full-scholarship-to-college good. But close. I'd love to go on and on about how fantastic I was at golf but just the mention of the word makes me think of the Tiger Woods shenanigans and how the hell have we not talked about that yet

In the words of Polly, that boy shamed his Mama. 

Go ahead, shake your head. I can't believe the nerve of that guy either. I'm bad at sports, pub games, I'm even bad at exercise but man-o-lordy, that Tiger Woods is bad at marriage and I'm pretty sure a mini-skirt isn't going to help him look good while, ahem, cheating. 

Tell me, people, what sports are you exceptionally bad at and why? And how about that Tiger??

Comments

[Polly]

I, too, am afflicted with the no-cartwheels gene. I used to be able to do a somersault though. And I wasn't too bad at tetherball.

After that, I've got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except maybe once I served in volleyball and the ball actually got over the net. But that might not have been me. Or it might have been a dream.

There are a number of reasons I am not athletic. One is generally, I'm designed for the bedroom not the track. My proportions are all off for running and such. Also, I'm not particularly coordinated, and I have a really short attention span and am easily distracted. Not to mention that I hate to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced in any way.

So I stick to things that I'm good at and can look cool doing, like drinking wine and lounging.

[Mattie]

I was a great baseball player but a terrible pitcher. Everyone was afraid to go to bat when I was on the mound. I would hit more kids with my pitch then I would the strike zone. Not on purpose mind you but because I was wild. I think my coach was a sadist because he kept putting me in the game even though I would peg these kids left and right. It wasn't long before there where complaints and 'Mow em down Wheeler' was moved to shortstop never to pitch another game.
As far as Tiger...this is what happens when you treat someone like a god from an early age. Every child is and should be a star in very very small doses. But if you treat a child like the second coming, then don't be suprised when they act like a self-involved deity.

[Diosa]

I never played sports. Never even tried. I'm not embarrassingly bad if you throw a game of softball together, though. I was never a cheer leader and could never do a decent cartwheel. I was an aerobics instructor in college. I have the athleticism, just not the hand eye coordination. Or at least, I had the athleticism.

I expect all men, and most women, with that much celebrity and money to cheat. I think we're all human, and when you're in a position of power that others find attractive, you're going to have many opportunities to cheat. It only takes one moment of weakness, and then once you've crossed that line, what's to keep you from crossing it again?

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men" - Lord Acton

Truer words have never been spoken.

[Alice]

Polly, I had to think as to whether or not anyone would look bad drinking wine and lounging. The answer is most certainly yes.

Mattie, I had a little league baseball coach who used to throw tennis balls at us in practice so we wouldn't be afraid of pitchers like you. It didn't work for me at all. Also, I'm pretty sure if you caught a little league coach doing anything remotely like that now - there would be huuuge problems.

As for Mattie and Diosa on Tiger: I'm not surprised with the cheating, we all do shitty things every now and then. All of us. I'm particularly interested in how ridiculous the cover up story he tried to concoct after his wife beat him with a golf club.

[Pandora]

I enjoyed playing sports for all the wrong reasons.

Recreational soccer was my thing for about 10 years. I didn't do high school though; that was too competitive for me. I just enjoyed the social part of talking to people. Plus the bigger my boobs got, the more supportive sports bras I had to purchase.

In my senior year of high school I joined the cross country team. I hate running. I did it because I got to ditch school and go on weekend excursions to Lake Tahoe and LA.

See, never the right reasons.

Now, I just like watching sports. I'll even watch a Steelers game for the boy and send him text updates when he's at work.

[Kit]

I hit two of the first three skeet I ever aimed at. I haven't shot since, not least because I could only spoil that .666 average. And I'm really good at Scrabble. I haven't played team sports since I was fullback for a soccer team in elementary school - a team so good I never got to do very much.

Tiger Shmiger, I'm with Alice on this one. It's not news, just one more thing on the front page of the paper instead of the gutting of the health care bill.

[The Dol]

Cheerleading, track, drill team. I was pretty athletic, but not a super star.

Tiger is a douchebag.

Headed out shopping or I would elaborate.

[Curls]

I still have nightmares that I am in the middle of the Presidential Physical Fitness test and I have to hang on to that bar for more than one second. I was an honor roll student with a C in gym. There really is no sport that I can play, none. While both my brothers were MVP this or All Star that I was happy to be on the student council.

As for Tiger, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a man-whore celebrity. Look at George Clooney. The problem is wanting it all: the wife, kids, and doggy family portrait that you don’t live up to. You can’t do both. It’s terrible the humiliation he is putting his wife through.

[Bookgirl]

I am so uncoordinated that I am an atleticism black hole. If you stand too close to me, I actually suck out some of your talent.

In high school gym class, when we used to do the swinging ropes, the teacher used to tell us that we were stranded in the jungle, it was a crocodile pit we were crossing, and we had to get to the other side to survive. I never once made it. She finally told the class that even if they all made it across, they were all going to die anyway, because I was the smart one and the one most likely to figure out how to save everybody else.

She said it in a way that was less likely to get her sued than my way was, but you get the drift.

We used to have "marathons" at camp during the summer, where you had to run around the whole campground. I got the ribbon for coming in last. Sigh...