Maybe I Should"ve Learned to Catch the Typewriter?
I never played sports when I was a kid.
I wasn't in little league baseball, pee wee football, and rarely ever picked up a basketball.
Sure, I played ball in the street with my friends, but I sucked at it.
I was always picked last no matter what we played, and I was perpetually known as what kids like to call an "easy out".
S'okay with me, I didn't really want to play so much in the first place.
I never learned to play sports very well, but I learned to type when I was still very young.
By the time I was eight, I was already writing stories and showing them to my parents.
I wanted my stories to look "like books", so I asked my mother to teach me how to type that year.
My mom is an amazing typist, and she taught me on a manual typewriter which I used for the next several years.
I used to watch her type without looking at the typewriter, often having a conversation with someone while she did it, without missing a letter.
Some people want to learn to throw a pass like their Dad.
I wanted to type like my Mom.
Of course, my interest in writing, acting, music, and all things entertainment was something my parents encouraged.
They never pushed me into sports and, for that reason, I never got into them.
Of course, this doesn't stop me from blaming them for the fact that, to this day, I throw like a girl.
Sure, I was typing 60 words per minute (on a manual typewriter, thank you very much) by the time I was ten years old, but I was scared of the football and tended to duck when it was passed to me.
I still don't know what something called the "Infield Fly Rule" is, and once heard my roommate referring to a "Hat Trick" while watching a Leafs game.
In fact, the only sport I was remotely very good at was running.
I was a hell of a sprinter when I was a kid.
Not that I was extremely athletic, but because I always had a really big mouth.
If you can't take a punch, and yet can't seem to stop insulting the kid who is twice your size, you sure as hell better know how to run far and run fast.
So, at the very least, I can con my way through many sports conversations by falling back on "I was always a sprinter" whenever my usual standby excuse of "I travel too much to pay attention to sports" doesn't work.
Whenever that fails, I sometimes mention that I took Volleyball as a PE credit at University.
Okay, I also took "Ballroom Dance", but I try not to mention that.
So, even as I entered adulthood and moved well past even electric typewriters to the high-tech world of cheap laptops, I still never managed to learn much in the way of sports of any kind.
Sure, I work out all the time and stay fit, but I'm completely helpless with anything more complex than playing Trashcan Basketball with rejection letters from publishers.
A "What if" scenario that sometimes pops into my head is the thought of me one day having children.
As frightening as that thought is for many various reasons (those of you who know me can stop laughing at this point, thanks), I'm mostly scared of the thought of a young son coming to me and saying, catcher's mitt in hand, "Hey, Dad, want to play catch?" "Not now," I muss up his hair, and send him on his way, "Daddy's writing jokes about his penis while listening to smooth jazz.
Go ask your mother.
" I can only hope that I marry a woman who is an amazing athlete.
That way, she can teach the children to catch and throw, perhaps even take a stray pitch to the hip.
As embarrassing as it is that I'll have to completely play role reversal, at least the kids will have a fighting chance by learning sports from someone who knows what they're doing.
I'll be in the kitchen, making pesto sauce and being thankful I'm not out in the back yard, getting my ass kicked by my wife and child.
They say that it's both a sad and glorious day when a child bests his father for the first time.
How sad is it then when that day is the first one? By the way, I type almost 120 words per minute.
So there.
I wasn't in little league baseball, pee wee football, and rarely ever picked up a basketball.
Sure, I played ball in the street with my friends, but I sucked at it.
I was always picked last no matter what we played, and I was perpetually known as what kids like to call an "easy out".
S'okay with me, I didn't really want to play so much in the first place.
I never learned to play sports very well, but I learned to type when I was still very young.
By the time I was eight, I was already writing stories and showing them to my parents.
I wanted my stories to look "like books", so I asked my mother to teach me how to type that year.
My mom is an amazing typist, and she taught me on a manual typewriter which I used for the next several years.
I used to watch her type without looking at the typewriter, often having a conversation with someone while she did it, without missing a letter.
Some people want to learn to throw a pass like their Dad.
I wanted to type like my Mom.
Of course, my interest in writing, acting, music, and all things entertainment was something my parents encouraged.
They never pushed me into sports and, for that reason, I never got into them.
Of course, this doesn't stop me from blaming them for the fact that, to this day, I throw like a girl.
Sure, I was typing 60 words per minute (on a manual typewriter, thank you very much) by the time I was ten years old, but I was scared of the football and tended to duck when it was passed to me.
I still don't know what something called the "Infield Fly Rule" is, and once heard my roommate referring to a "Hat Trick" while watching a Leafs game.
In fact, the only sport I was remotely very good at was running.
I was a hell of a sprinter when I was a kid.
Not that I was extremely athletic, but because I always had a really big mouth.
If you can't take a punch, and yet can't seem to stop insulting the kid who is twice your size, you sure as hell better know how to run far and run fast.
So, at the very least, I can con my way through many sports conversations by falling back on "I was always a sprinter" whenever my usual standby excuse of "I travel too much to pay attention to sports" doesn't work.
Whenever that fails, I sometimes mention that I took Volleyball as a PE credit at University.
Okay, I also took "Ballroom Dance", but I try not to mention that.
So, even as I entered adulthood and moved well past even electric typewriters to the high-tech world of cheap laptops, I still never managed to learn much in the way of sports of any kind.
Sure, I work out all the time and stay fit, but I'm completely helpless with anything more complex than playing Trashcan Basketball with rejection letters from publishers.
A "What if" scenario that sometimes pops into my head is the thought of me one day having children.
As frightening as that thought is for many various reasons (those of you who know me can stop laughing at this point, thanks), I'm mostly scared of the thought of a young son coming to me and saying, catcher's mitt in hand, "Hey, Dad, want to play catch?" "Not now," I muss up his hair, and send him on his way, "Daddy's writing jokes about his penis while listening to smooth jazz.
Go ask your mother.
" I can only hope that I marry a woman who is an amazing athlete.
That way, she can teach the children to catch and throw, perhaps even take a stray pitch to the hip.
As embarrassing as it is that I'll have to completely play role reversal, at least the kids will have a fighting chance by learning sports from someone who knows what they're doing.
I'll be in the kitchen, making pesto sauce and being thankful I'm not out in the back yard, getting my ass kicked by my wife and child.
They say that it's both a sad and glorious day when a child bests his father for the first time.
How sad is it then when that day is the first one? By the way, I type almost 120 words per minute.
So there.
