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SWEAT,
GRUNTS AND GROANS |
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If the good Lord had wanted us to stink, He never would have invented soap. But now, at my advanced middle-agedness, I find out that sweating can get you to Hawaii. Who knew? My husband, previously introduced as Beloved Spouse, is a very good tennis player. When you are a very good tennis player you join the USTA, United States Tennis Association, who then sends out real, actual people to evaluate your play. Then you get ranked which is not nearly as painful as it sounds. Ranking for amateur tennis starts at a level of 3.0 and then advances by halves, that is, 3.5, 4.0 and so on to the top rank of 6.0. All of the professional players you see are beyond that rating. Beloved Spouse is a 4.5 player. Once you have a rank, you can then form teams with other players at your same rank and that’s when the excitement reaches a fevered pitch. Grown men and women just get besides themselves if they get to wear a uniform of any sort. Furthermore, if they are not only allowed but encouraged to sweat in that uniform, well, total and complete ecstasy is thus achieved. Beloved Spouse’s team is sponsored by his place of business. The team members have real actual tennis attire with the company name emblazoned on same: AmeriTitle. Their team plays other teams with the same ranking although the other teams have to provide their own sweaty wardrobe. This year, the AmeriTitle Tennis Team won their league and advanced to Sectionals. These contests were in Portland, Oregon August 11-13. Beloved Spouse has been on other teams that have gone to Sectionals before. These other teams have had some of the same players as this year’s team. The one thing you have to understand about Sectionals is that they play other teams from other parts of the Pacific Northwest and as a rule, those other teams cheat. I can’t believe it either. You would think that being able to get sweaty in large groups without getting yelled at would be enough for these people. But, no. Seems that there’s always one team or another who has one or more “ringers,” that is, players who are not truly at a 4.5 ranking. They are sandbagging from a higher rank and that tain’t fittin’. The USTA is very diligent about finding these rascals and I’m sure those individuals will have a lot of explaining to do when they meet the Big Line Judge in the Sky. If you’ve never been to a tennis match before and you plan on doing so sometime in the future, let me reassure you that all that grunting and groaning they do is normal. Well, normal by tennis standards. Personally, it gives me the giggles. It was once considered gauche to make any kind of sound while playing tennis and sweating. You would have thought they were performing crucial surgery by the lack of noise and the fierce concentration. It was not unheard of for line judges to use corporal punishment on those who would make noise while playing tennis. Any noisemakers in the stands were usually shot. But now, spectators not only cheer, clap and boo; if they sit politely and turn off their cell phones, they are usually evicted from the viewing area and charged with being dead. And if that’s not enough racket, pun intended, the players themselves could drown out a Rolling Stones’ concert. They grunt and groan with each swing as if the very action itself is a product of their last dying gasp. It sounds like the noises you would make if you were struggling with a particularly stubborn bowel movement but even if you were in the privacy of your own privy would not make even then because you would embarrass yourself to the point of dying in shame like Elvis. But tennis players are not reticent at all to make these sounds. I shudder what to think would happen if someone, certainly not me, put prune juice in their Gatorade. Let’s just say the fan would, indeed, be stained. Well, apparently, The AmeriTitle Tennis Team grunted and sweated their way to winning Sectionals this year. And that means, dear readers, that they are going to play in Nationals against 16 other teams. That’s right; Beloved Spouse’s team is one of the top 17 teams at the 4.5 ranking in the whole entire country, Puerto Rico and Guam included. And just guess where the Nationals are being held this year? Hawaii. This October, the competition to find the champion of the 4.5 teams will be held on the Big Island and of course, Beloved Spouse has to take his personal cheering team entourage with him. I believe someone said that it was either that or someone was going to die. Might have been me. And this will warm the cockles of your heart and who doesn’t just love the feeling of warm cockles, I ask you? I have been slammed with offers from those who would be willing to watch my kids in Hawaii so that I could have alone time with Beloved Spouse. Can you believe it? But I know how it will go. My husband will be off sweating and grunting with his sweaty, grunty friends. My children, being teenagers, are embarrassed by the very idea that someone will figure out they have parents and will be off doing their own thing. I will be the only one in need of adult supervision. And I don’t want any! |
ha ha ha
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