Bragging Rights

My long standing fear of balls (which basically sums up most of the popular sports) has prevented me from ever enjoying any type of sport. This goes back to my unpleasant experience in first grade. We were playing touch ball (also known as dodge ball) and since I was this looney thin kid (yes, there was indeed a time I was so thin and frail), the guys liked playing against me.

I was such an easy target. So that fateful morning, one of them hit me with a basketball in my face. That immediately sent the blood spilling against the ball, against the shirt and all of it murky and smeared across my face. That is also probably one of the reasons why I fear blood. My own blood. I remember that I was massaging my face the entire time. My gums too after bleeding profusely. The boys apologized but I suspect they always liked bullying me. They liked tripping me, pulling my hair and teasing me all the time. I seriously hope those boys improved after 20 long years. That's how twisted society is. Boys start liking girls early on but somehow, a lot of things get lost in translation, or rather in their manifestation of love.

Anyway, I still want to prove I'm such a worthless baller. In PE classes, I never shoot hoops because I couldn't. They never include me in the line-up for volleyball because my service never reaches the other end of the court. I couldn't even catch the tiny ball in a game of jackstone! Loser, di ba?

In college, I took up chess, folk dance (yeah, for lack of other options), and bowling. The latter is the only outlier. Probably because it is a non-contact sport. It's just me, the ball and the lane. The only award I ever had before was something I won in senior year in high school. I won first place in Chess, something that is still a non-contact sport and probably a brain sport that requires moving only one hand.

Therefore, for a couch potato, lampa, person with fear of balls, and a slowpoke like myself, you can just imagine the sense of accomplishment and pride I have after bagging two medals in our recent badminton tourney at the office. I got a silver since our team won second. The other one though is a gold medal, yeah, can you friggin' imagine why??? My partner and I made a sweep against all teams in our division. Actually, I will say she did most of the work but my gosh, a gold??? Hahahaha. Now this definitely goes to my something-to-tell-my-grandchildren list!

tags: sports  badminton  

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