so, my allen league volleyball team played for the championship a couple days ago. this is a very significant event in the life of my volleyball family because...well...remind me to blawg one day about "the great cuss fest of 2009." long story short: we lost the allen league playoffs to a team to which we should not have lost, all behind some foolishness. yeah, i think that's a pretty good way to sum it up. the details, though, are wonderful. it's one of those times that you have to look back on and laugh about, but at the time it's the furthest thing from funny. that was the event in volleyball history that cursed us, and since then we had never again played volleyball in allen until now.
well anyway, heading up the original team is the captain, who we'll call "he-man" for obvious reasons. there's also x, my bestest volleyball friend/event coordinator, another recent friend we'll call "barbie" (again, for obvious reasons...it's no coincidence that she's married to a guy we'll call "ken"...they're both life sized), of course there's myself, and the last two are going to be called "monica" and "chandler." more on chandler to come. well, he-man sustained a huge injury a few weeks ago, forcing him to sit out the rest of the season. taking his place was "marco," who's pretty good at volleyball. i was gone for three games, and monica and chandler were out for a week or so due to our various adventures (or misadventures in my case...see any blawg relating to NYSP). we had to have subs, but they're irrelevant to anything right now so i'll mention them no longer.
it was a pretty important game, so i (against my better judgment) decided to invite trip and luby, my siblings, for our big nite. barbie's husband ken was also in attendance, as was he-man and his wife, "she-ra." so we had us a good cheering crowd.
now, if i haven't already mentioned it, trip, being the arrogant son of a b*tch that he loves to be, thinks that he's god's gift to anything athletic. every time i mention that i've played in a game, he always says that we could have done better if he were on the team. god forbid i tell him that we lost a game. it doesn't always happen, but hey...every now and then sh*t happens. that's when he really goes off and says that i'm an idiot because i didn't call him to play. well on the nite of our championship, i gave him the chance that he so sorely had been wanting all this time. i kept giving him a volleyball and telling him to jump on and play.
me: here's a ball. let's see what you got.
trip: nah, i got the wrong shoes on.
luby: those shoes look great.
me: huh?
luby: oh, i'm on the phone.
trip: these clothes aren't good to play in.
luby: i need to buy my boys some new clothes for school.
me: well, don't wait until my berfday to do it.
luby: oh, i'm on the phone.
me: c'mon, brother, this is your big chance to show us all your incredible talent.
luby: yeah, this is your time to shine.
me: don't pay any attention to her; she's on the phone.
luby: no, i'm not. i'm talkin' to trip.
me: good god, i'm in the twilight zone.
so trip declined every invitation to play...as i thought he would. keep that in mind for what's to come. so our team played this team of jackarses that had been so rude in every past game that karma hit them hard. they only had five players on the court, which put them at a disadvantage. and with them being the team of rude people that they were, we took full advantage of their disadvantage. the game went something like this:
i mean...damn. they couldn't stop us. any why would they have been able to anyway? i had been watching the men's and women's volleyball matches in the olympics, and i don't usually tell anyone this, but i have this weird power to pick up skills just by watching them. it's like a strange ability osmosis thing. at any rate, because of all the games i had been watching, i ended up having quite a good game. i was as good as chandler or better, because when it comes to volleyball, he's simply the best there is...except for that nite. that nite, volleyball was spelled w-e-s-l-e-y. it was a good game.
i must also mention our referee, who had gone for years without a name. we finally, more like inadvertently, found out her name. i'll leave it out here, but it actually turned out to be a good thing. we had known her from years ago when we played in allen, but she had always been known as the chain-smoking b*tch who didn't know what the hell she was doing. she has this really raspy voice and says things such as:
- "in there..." when the volleyball is in bounds
- "out there..." when the volleyball is out of bounds
- "this way..." when one team gets the point
- "that way..." when the other team gets the point
years ago, we were in the middle of a rather long rally, when the whistle suddenly blew. we all looked at each other, and then to the other team, who looked back at us. nobody had done anything wrong, and we all looked to the ref. her response..."sorry, i took a breath." she took a breath. by the way, this is what she looks like:
she doesn't even drive; she just floats around on a nicotine-high cloud of ecstasy. oh well, right? whatever floats her boat...and doesn't rock mine... barbie apparently has this connection where she can get cookies for free. it's some random thing with her grandmother...
and it's a damn good thing, too, because this got the referee on our side. most people couldn't really tell by just looking at her, but this lady is a b*tch on the volleyball sideline. that referee whistle gave her too much power that went to her head...straight past the nicotine and to her head. or maybe the whistle had nicotine in it; that would explain why it never left her mouth.
i digress. the point was that we won. during the game, every time i would look to trip and luby, luby would applaud/cheer/encourage and trip would say "you suck." i can accept that, and my heart is still open. besides, i wouldn't really expect anything less from him and his ignorant arse. when the game was over, though, something peculiar happened.
we went to celebrate at a place called pluckers, where i decided to take a macaroni and cheese tray. it was random, and don't really know why i did it, but i did it. does that make me a criminal? maybe just a miscreant. it's not like i haven't been called worse. by the by...what constitutes a "date"? trip, luby, monica, chandler, x, and i had a conversation about what makes a date. they were criticizing me because what i called a date wasn't really a date by their standards. i will always think that i'm right, unless i'm wrong. and i may be wrong, but i doubt it.
back to the peculiarity. after we were done at the pluckers, everyone was about to go their separate ways, myself included. trip and luby were at a standstill. something was happening along the lines of luby deceived trip into driving her car all the way out to allen under the premise that she was going to drive back. well, when we were done at the pluckers she said, "you know i'm not driving." it somehow got under trip's arrogant skin and they had a long standoff where neither of them got in the driver's seat. at any point i could have just gotten in my own car and driven home, but as the oldest and wisest of the three, i decided to stick around and try and work things out. but...BUT...that's when i found out something quite disgusting (that's not really the right word...more like unappealing) about trip.
me: thanx for coming out to watch, you guys. i appreciate it. i hope y'all had fun.
luby: we did, and you were really good tonite.
trip: it was fun. you...sucked. when are you gonna come to my next game?
me: seriously, what did you think?
trip: you played w...you sucked. when are you gonna come to my next game?
me: you're not gonna admit that i actually know how to play volleyball?
trip: you just said it.
me: but what do you think?
trip: i can't tell you that you're...that thing that you just said.
me: good at volleyball?
trip: yeah, that thing.
me: are you joking?
trip: no. so about my next game...
luby: hello? hey girl...
i found out that through an extension of his arrogance, trip is completely unable to give someone a compliment when said compliment comes with the reality that someone exists who is better than him at something. it was totally unbelievable. are you f*cking kidding me? i was so upset that he couldn't give me a small compliment about something that's very important to me because he is that stuck up. he claimed that this is something that's been a part of him for a long time, but who the hell cares about the back story? not i, said the main character. he plays baseball and softball, and since we've known each other, we've never been to each other's games. we made a deal that if he came to mine, i'd go to his. but to put that in front of a simple "you played well." i would have even been fine with "you're not too bad." the fact that he was unable to say anything other than "you suck" almost made me pull out move #72, which would've definitely made sure luby was going to drive.
so after some insistent prodding, he finally had enough time to come up with the excuse that he was going to compliment me in a "blog" that was planned as a surprise, and that i had just ruined it.
excuse me?
i haven't heard such sh*t come out of anybody's mouth since president clinton said that he did not have sexual relations with that woman. so apparently, his mind can't function in such a way that he is able to compliment someone orally, so he has to go sit somewhere and plan out his words carefully like he's shakespeare or t. s. eliot. how much planning and thinking and organizing and drafting and revising and editing and publishing does it take to say..."you played well."? i guess for him it takes a hell of a lot of it, because unless he's about to extol my virtues in an epic about how well i can play volleyball, he's going to pretty boldly miss the mark. the funny thing is...i'm not even fishing for huge compliments. it's just common courtesy. when i go to his game (because i am obligated to go per our deal), if he plays well i'll tell him. of course there will be the "you suck" and the "i could've done better than that" and the mandatory "too bad i'm not on your team..." but at the end of the damn day, if the n*gga plays well, i'll let him know. i'm not so proud that i can't tell someone that they are good at something.
i've blawged about how awful i am at basketball. people who know me know damn well that i can't pass, dribble, shoot, play offense, play defense...i can't even warm the bench right. therefore, i don't fool with basketball. when it comes to it, i'd tell someone they're good at basketball...NOT because he's better than me (even though it's assumed), but because (and this might come as a shock) he's good at basketball.
so trip...you don't need to fake a "blog" about how good you think you want me to think you think. for the third time in my thirty-four years of life, the few feelings i keep hidden have been hurt. so congratulations, brother, you did well.
meanwhile, what a happy day...today i move out of the halfway house. i should explain. remember how i wrote in a blawg a long while ago that i go through roommates like toilet paper? if not, then go back and take a stroll with me down memory lane...
what a great stroll, right?
so through an intricate series of unfortunate events and oddly-timed coincidences, i ended up moving out of my lavish townhome apartment with "kramer," a fellow teacher, and into another apartment with chandler. i guess it would effectively make me "joey," but i'm wesley. how you doin'...?
the apartment, though, is finally ready to move into, but for a month i've had to stay in chandler's old apartment, which i called the halfway house. so that's what the halfway house is. now i can live again. oh happy day.
damn the italian men's volleyball team,
-w
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