(More than) Fourinarow.net

After dinner this evening, Dan had a wild hair and told the family that we were heading over to the park across the street where he and I would play some tennis.  The kids would all have the pleasure of shagging balls.

It was a gorgeous evening – the first real one of the season – so I thought, why not?  We dug up our never-been-used rackets and looked for some balls.  There were none to be found, so I called my next door neighbor to ask if she had any.  “Well… I think I have one in my backyard, and I might have one in the basement somewhere…,” she told me.  So, we made a detour to the hardware store to buy a can.

At the park, I was a little embarrassed to see some other players on the courts.  I mean, I haven’t played since… ohhhh… ummmmm… I was 14?  And anyone could see at a glance that we weren’t professionals, as we  were headed to the court with more kids than balls.

Dan and I did our best and the kids had a blast chasing balls.  The problem was that they didn’t want to give them up once they had them.  That, and they didn’t wait for a ball to go out of play before trying to chase it down.  I hit three children with a ball during our “game” and one child twice.  The second hit, unfortunately, was on the chin.  Boy, did that piss him off.  Thankfully, both Dan and I managed to avoid smacking anyone with a racket, despite the kids wanting to stand RIGHT next to us while we played.

I told Dan it was like playing a video game where you’re supposed to hit the ball, but not any of the other stuff that comes at you or pops up in the way.

We finally gave up when a game of chase-around-the-court ended up with Lukie falling on top of Sam and Sam smacking his face on the ground.

You should see the kids.  You’d think they’d been playing a rough game of hockey this evening instead of chasing a few balls for Mom and Dad.