Yesterday afternoon, like all Wednesday afternoons for the last two weeks and for the next 8, I spent an hour at an elementary school playground. I have two younger cousins, eleven and nine (or, ALMOST TWELVE! and NINE-AND-A-HALF!, if you ask them) and the nine-year-old has soccer practice. Meanwhile, I spend the hour convincing the eleven-year-old that I’m cool enough to hang out with. (Tip for older cousins: having an iPhone helps.)
Yesterday, it was finally nice enough for us to do something other than stand in the wind and freeze so we played basketball. Seeing as I haven’t played basketball in about fifteen years, I was shocked that I still knew how to hold one. And shoot it. Apparently, all iPhone and other electronics aside, this also shocked my cousin. In all his eleven years I’m sure he couldn’t imagine a person cool enough to drive a car, buy him a Slurpee, and win a game of Horse ALL IN ONE DAY. And yet, I did.
But that was only about twenty minutes, and being like most kids who are ALMOST TWELVE!, he began to get bored. That was until a few of his classmates showed up. Great, I thought, now I’ll be bored. But then the strangest thing happened, the other kids wanted to play. With me! Talk about shocking.
Okay, or so I thought. Because, yes, I was still feeling pretty awesome at this point. I mean, to have someone think you’re cool who doesn’t even consider you’re old enough to gamble and buy booze is pretty good for the ego. I was flying pretty high, thinking I had a worthy jump shot and everything, even.
And then the ball came flying at me and I realized how long it had been since I’ve played team sports. Why don’t we wear helmets in basket ball? And for that matter, face masks and shin guards. These kids were a special kind of ruthless, trying to pass the ball over my head, making me run across the court, denying me a time out when I had a perfectly good reason (i.e. ICANNOTBREATHEFORTHELOVEOFPETEYOULITTLEBEAST).
“Well,” said my cousin, “I guess maybe next week you won’t want to play basketball again, huh?”
“What?! Of course I want to play again?”
“Are you sure you don’t just want to read a book or something?”
I almost responded saying something like “Listen here, Mister, I RUN MARATHONS. I will pulverize you and your friends, WAIT AND SEE.” But then one of my knees sort of gave out and I may have blacked out just briefly, so I just nodded.
Brats.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Teenagers (or there abouts)! They soften you all up by making you think that you are the cool mom/aunt/neighbour and then, wham, they show you who is still boss.
Anyone who cannot identify the most epic player of basketball based on the number of his jersey alone doesn’t need to be playing ball. You should have ushered them off the court on principal alone.
Total brats!
my roommate and i played wiffle ball with a bunch of kids on the neighborhood this weekend and basically got our asses kicked. similar situation, i feel your pain