And There Will Be Dancing...

By The Girl

June 27, 2007

9 comments

Tonight is my kickball league's playoff game. My team did not make it past the first round of playoffs. Every team was guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. There are 5 teams. We were the losingest. This strikes me as very odd because in every other sense, my team was the champion. If my kickball league was a high school, we'd have swept categories like "best looking," "class clown," "most athletic," "best dressed," "most dramatic," "best smile," "best personality"...you name it, we had it. The cutest guy in the leauge? Totally on our team. Oh, those muscular thighs...that golden blonde hair...uhh...wait, what was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, my kickball team. Well, individually we are quite successful, with a smattering of advanced degrees, legal power, pageantry, breeding, class, and general pull in what direction Youngstown moves in. Unfortunately, we just never gelled as a successful team, probably because we are too independent (or drunk) to work together as a real team.

That's my opinion anyway. What do I know? I never played on a team before in my life. Not even in gym. I was that girl who wandered off during gym class, hid under the bleachers and wrote crappy, cryptic poetry or something equally loser-y. Perhaps I am the ambivalent loose cog that broke the team down or held us back.

All I know is that sign-ups for the Fall Kickball League are fast approaching and I think I will save my 45 bucks and sit on the sidelines, cheering the teams on. All of you, however, should totally sign up. It's a really fun activity and you get to meet lots of people. A word of advice to the Kickball League organizers: cut the enrollment fee to a general team fee, like $150 or even $200 per team. This will encourage participation (the more team members, the less each will have to pay) -- I know a lot of people who would like to play but don’t want to fork over that amount of money to play a traditional backyard game.

For me, kickball was an excuse to drink in the middle of the week. It was also a great way to bond with people I had recently met or friends I had lost touch with…and of course, a great way to meet new people. If my mother had her way, those new people would include successful, educated, wealthy men who wanted to wed and bed me (in that order) and give her grandbabies right away. Thankfully, my mother does not get her way very often.

In a way, though, I'm pretty sure that all large-group events like this are just dating scams in disguise. I mean, seriously, once we reach a certain age, everything is just a thinly veiled desperate attempt to meet your soul mate, or at least sometime to whittle away the weekends with.

That being said, I don't know why my kickball team didn't get more dates out of this. The closest I got to a date was the creepy ump who called me "Rainbow Brite" and made bad calls in favor of my team due to his penchant for staring at my multi-color-sock-clad legs.

Maybe there were lots of illicit hook-ups but people were really good about keeping them quiet or else I’m just totally oblivious. Maybe people were afraid to talk to people not on their team due to an anticipated rivalry. Maybe they really were just there to play kickball…sick bastards.

Maybe the fall League will be different, but I doubt it. If ever there were a season to make really poor decisions regarding the people you sleep with, it is summer, especially this stretch where the heat leads to stupidity, tan lines, and general scantily clad-ness.

I will end this post with a promise and a question:

I will be at the playoffs at Pemberton Park on SoSide this evening (6 to be precise), despite that damn storm warning alert I just heard, drinking in the bleachers (and possibly dancing on them, HMac) and keeping an eye out for any impending romance in the humid air…

…and how do you, dear readers, feel about dating people you work (or play) with? Is it wise, in your experiences, to hook up with a person you previously defined as just a friend?

In vodka we trust,

-- the girl

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