In my neverending quest for self-improvement, I recently played a round of dodgeball. Not that I’ve never played before. Like most people, my childhood memories are rife with memories of balls flying at my face, smacking me in the head, desperately praying that once out, no one will catch the ball to bring me back in.
P.E. wasn’t my favorite.
However, as a new gal about town, I’m keen to meet people and having recently made the decision to start training in case I found out I’m a member of an elite fraternity of assassins I decided that being able to power balls at my enemies whilst taunting their lack of skills fit in with this goal.
Besides, they were encouraging the use of costumes and team names. I love costumes and team names. Secretly I was hoping for either Team FREEDOM or Citizen’s Arrest.
Sadly, the organization beforehand started flagging right away as everyone I knew was either out of town or reluctant to trek out to another area of Metro Manila for the dodgeball. I’m not sure HOW someone can decide that a 30 minute drive is too far to go for dodgeball glory, but that was the decision some of my compatriots sadly came to.
I ended up deciding to meet a group at a gas station and then taxi over to the final destination. Being new to the city, I had no idea where this gas station was, but was confident that the taxi driver would.
That was dumb. I went through three cab drivers who all looked at me like I was mildly insane and kept repeating the names I was telling them with a quizzical air.
It was already hot, I hadn’t slept the MOST the night before, and I’m three months in to my new life. All the ingredients for a tantrum. So after I slammed the door on the last cabbie, I texted the organizer for my team and said I couldn’t find a cab that knew the directions so I wasn’t going to go. She called to talk me down out of my tantrum, told me the directions to give to the next cab driver, and reiterated that I’d already signed up for the team. Took a deep breath, beat down my inner two-year-old, and went back to find a cab and get to the meeting place.
It was of course only 10 minutes away. Bah.
It was a car full of ladies that was heading out from the gas station. Everyone kept talking about how they’d either never played dodgeball or hadn’t in so long that they weren’t thinking they’d do so well. I participated in this conversation as well. As would later come to light, I was the only one not lying about my lack of skills. I even went so far as to inform everyone that while I would talk trash and brag about my abilities endlessly before the game, I would ultimately end up not being able to throw, catch, or dodge effectively. Everyone laughed and I suspect did not take me seriously enough.
We arrived at the sports club. It was huge and sweaty and filled with badminton courts and a smaller area with people doing capoeira. Everyone milled about chatting and finding their teams. Two teams had played before, or were made up of people who had played before in the previous tournament. There was one guy, John, who towered over everyone as they whispered about his strength and speed. When trying to determine our team name, everyone was floating ideas and no one was very taken with Team FREEDOM or Citizen’s Arrest. I don’t know why people don’t like superb ideas, but there you go.
We ended up picking the name 90210 because Nate (who ended up defecting to another team) has this idea that he is like Dylan. I was all, you’re totally more Steve Saunders. I claimed Kelly, mainly because I love bike shorts and floaty tops. Though on reflection, I think being Donna Martin could have been good if I could have been able to get people to chant ‘Donna Martin Graduates! Donna Martin Graduates!’. Maybe that’s my team name for next time. Even if I have to be the only team member.
Our first game set the stage for the continuing magic. It was a practice game. I did the athlete’s jumping up and down and clapping and cheering beforehand. While other people were really stretching, I did mock stretching and a bit of strutting around. I suspect one of my teammates did not appreciate my enthusiasm. Each of the sets were three minutes long. Three minutes doesn’t sound long, but I tell you what, getting pummeled by balls makes three minutes feel more like four.
As part of my plan to psych out the competition, when facing my opponent across the court, I would bend down into the runner’s stance and wait to catch their eye. First, I would do the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture. Then I would point dramatically at them and then at the ground in the classic ‘You’re going down’ gesture. Finally, I would slowly draw my index finger across my throat. Steal their confidence and you’ve got their game, man.
Sadly my abilities did not match my bravado. Notable was my inability to reach the balls in the center of the court before anyone else. Then I would be so incredibly focused on the ball directly in front of me that I would miss the ball to the left and the right until I had already started to back up from the line. Yes, this happened every single time. The balls were light foam with an underlay of wire to give them shape and a small bit of heft. This heft didn’t help me to heave them across to the other side. Throwing the balls to the waiting arms of my opponents became my specialty. And every single time it would take me a minute to remember that I was then off the court. The only reason my absence from the court truly mattered was that the goal was to pick off all members of the team.
There were a few times when I was the last person left on the court by reasons I still don’t understand. One time, I didn’t realize I was the last person and was holding a ball, facing two men running toward me with their balls. At this point I had a few options. Two of them, one of me. I could have thrown my ball at them as hard as possible and run toward the back at a diagonal to get away. I could have tried to catch at least one of the balls they threw to try and get one of my teammates back in.
So I took the third, wiser option of miming a turtle. I may have rather loudly said, oh my god no, and then cowered down, hiding my head behind the ball. As I was ducking my head, I saw one of the gentlemen laughing and gently toss the ball in a gentle arc toward my legs. Impact. I can’t decide if I appreciate not having a ball drilled into my leg at top speed or if I’m insulted that he knew he KNEW that I wouldn’t even try to catch it and so figured it was an easy lob.
I also got hit in the crotch. And the few pictures I’ve seen of myself from the event… Not attractive. They are ALL of me getting hit by the ball and looking irritated and a little surprised. Like, what the hell is this BALL doing hitting me?
Perhaps my least dignified moment came when the organizer of the event came up to me and said, okay! Playoffs! Your team is up now!
And I said, what?!? How the hell are we in the playoffs?!!!! We are the worst team ever! We shouldn’t be in the playoffs!
Though with only four teams playing, everyone was in the playoffs.
Unfortunately, we were unable to rally and we ended the tournament not as victors. Wait, that’s not entirely true. We had the moral victory. We were the only team that never drilled anyone in the crotch or the breasts. We didn’t have to resort to dirty tricks to try and win. We may have lost, but we kept our gentility.
