I Guess I'm a Catch

There's a lot of sports in my life right now. And I'm not talking about Little League. Curiously, I'm surrounded by people who believe it's a good idea to ask me to contribute to their quest to triumph over other moms and dads in the form of recreational games. I gave them all of the reasons not to; I described my questionably lengthy commitment to the Girl Scouts of America, my reign as Opinion Editor of the school newspaper, my penchant for Tori Amos and writing poetry on my closet wall. This is all before my knitting phase.

They persisted.

The research on success rates of competitive people is clear. Probably. I haven't done any research.

I'm sure that competitive people are more successful, if not only professionally. Yet, I'm pretty sure the competitive chip is programmed before birth - on the assembly line where babies are made. In heaven, or purgatory, or...Detroit. It's probably outsourced. I have no idea. Now I have to be Deepak Chopra? Either you're competitive or you're not. And let's just say, I didn't get the chip. Or someone forgot to activate it on the assembly line. But I said yes.

There's a lot to love about it. There's uniforms with catchy names and numbers, there's music designed to motivate us, there's thrilling verbal abuse toward other teams, there's always beer. And while I still question the ability of these moms and dads to come to sensible conclusions, I'm secretly exhilarated that they asked. Now, I'm finding myself saying, "Good eye!" and "That was bullshit!" at relatively appropriate times. I have reasonably athletic shoes, I've formed alliances with the strongest players and faithfully stand too close to them on the field, I'm getting a sense of when the game begins and ends.

If I could talk to that pubescent, athletics-avoiding creature today, I'd tell her it's all going to be ok. Except for the lack of bladder control.