When I was about 12, my mom sent me to tennis camp at this tiny college in Ohio. I don't think I was particularly interested in tennis then (or really now, for that matter) but I was chubby and my mom may have wanted me to get fit and trim. Or, more likely since she was just divorced, she just farmed all six of us kids out to a variety of week-long, sleep away camps so we'd get the hell out of her hair and she could sink into major depression in peace. One of my younger sisters came along with me, poor thing, but her inducement was honest: if she went to camp, she'd get to see "Grease" when we were both released at week's end. Obviously no weight problem for her.
Over the course of 20 years, I've rarely thought about that week, but I've recently taken up Wii tennis and with it, a slew of memories has been recovered (maybe I have that yucky repressed memory syndrome and am about to remember really, really bad things soon!). The worst is that I now recall that for a solid five day period in which I must have played 30 games of tennis--singles and doubles--I didn't win a single game. Not one, once. And now I'm reliving the ignominy, this time in the comfort of a carpeted living room in which I battle Wii.
It sucks, really, to lose all the time, and after three months of tennis, I'm still a rank amateur. Eleven year-old daughter? Pro. Thirteen year-old son? Pro. Husband who maybe picks up the little controller and flicks his wrist around once a week or so while sending emails on his BlackBerry with the other hand? Pro. Just like summer camp, I try so hard and lose so badly--emotionally as well as actually. I am a terrible loser, a screamer in the McEnroe school, a thrower and tosser and stomper. I'm just lucky we don't use real racquet's or I'd have smashed the TV to bits by now. As it is, I have to put money in the "swear jar" every time I get near the Wii, and still I lose, I lose, I lose. And then I lose some more. Would it be too much to ask for a Wii drinking game or reading game or napping game, things in which I could really excel? In which, in fact, I already excel here in the real world. I would go pro in the first round! Done.
Over the course of 20 years, I've rarely thought about that week, but I've recently taken up Wii tennis and with it, a slew of memories has been recovered (maybe I have that yucky repressed memory syndrome and am about to remember really, really bad things soon!). The worst is that I now recall that for a solid five day period in which I must have played 30 games of tennis--singles and doubles--I didn't win a single game. Not one, once. And now I'm reliving the ignominy, this time in the comfort of a carpeted living room in which I battle Wii.
It sucks, really, to lose all the time, and after three months of tennis, I'm still a rank amateur. Eleven year-old daughter? Pro. Thirteen year-old son? Pro. Husband who maybe picks up the little controller and flicks his wrist around once a week or so while sending emails on his BlackBerry with the other hand? Pro. Just like summer camp, I try so hard and lose so badly--emotionally as well as actually. I am a terrible loser, a screamer in the McEnroe school, a thrower and tosser and stomper. I'm just lucky we don't use real racquet's or I'd have smashed the TV to bits by now. As it is, I have to put money in the "swear jar" every time I get near the Wii, and still I lose, I lose, I lose. And then I lose some more. Would it be too much to ask for a Wii drinking game or reading game or napping game, things in which I could really excel? In which, in fact, I already excel here in the real world. I would go pro in the first round! Done.
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