Cry Baby

Yesterday afternoon we beat one of the best soccer teams in our division! This team had 3 of the top scorers in our league. Their guys were all super fit and could run circles around us. Their ball control made us look like a bunch toddlers with severely under-developed motor skills. I mean, they were tough. So how did we win?

By default.

2:20 p.m. came and went and not enough players showed to form their team. So instead we took advantage of the empty field and scrimmaged for 30 minutes. Scrimmage, by the way, apparently equates to "No holds barred". Playing meant taking my life into my own hands and praying that I made it out alive. It was like Thunderdome out there, a fight to the death!

Or maybe I'm just over-dramatizing a bit because that was the first time in a LONG time that I've actually cried, out loud and everything, from physical pain. It was ugly. And I am so embarrassed about my sad little display of sissy-ness.

Here's how it went down. They had such disproportionate possession of the ball that much of the game was played out near our goal. They were even so confident that the goalie, the cocky shit, had come out of the box and over into our field to assist in the assault. He took possession of the ball, and just as our players were about to close in on him, he made a last ditch effort to score by rocketing and I do mean r-o-c-k-e-t-ing a shot off at the goal. Luckily my face was in the way.

I had a split second to register the fact that this lethal missile was speeding toward my head before some animalistic instinct of self-preservation made me quickly turn so that the full force of the brick wall that ran me over hit my right ear and neck instead of my nose and eye. For a second the impact just reverberated through my brain and skull. There go differential equations. I stood there stunned before the pain kicked in, but I was still lucid enough to hear Greg yell at the guy before he came running out to get me. Then I don't know what happened. As soon as Greg came to put his arm around me, the tears just started flowing. I even let out a few pathetic whimpers as he walked me back to the bench. It was like a small but overflowing floodgate.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't all due to the physical pounding I took on the field. I think some of it may be the emotional pounding I've been dealing with lately, namely graduating and getting out of grad school. Whatever it was, it only served to piss me off. After I dried my tears and iced my ear, I was all the more eager to get out there and risk life and limb once again.

Incidentally if this had been a real game with a ref, that would have been a foul thanks to the "macho" rule. I'm so not kidding about this. The macho rule is "a foul in coed play where a player is determined to be playing too aggressively for the given game situation", i.e. much better players trying to prove their manliness by launching missiles at girls' heads. Wanker!

(Is it just me or does it sound like I get the snot beaten out of me on a fairly regular basis? I present to you Exhibit A, B, and C.)

By the way, I think the last time I cried out loud from physical pain was when I slid 150 ft down a mountain in an uncontrolled tailspin and landed in sharp, jagged rocks seven years ago. That was fun. I'll have to share the story some time for posterity if nothing else...