since the new year i’ve been playing racquetball with bill pruitt so that i could eventually accomplish my goal of quitting paying racquetball twice a week (i had to start playing twice a week so that i could eventually quit playing – this is a goal i know i can eventually reach). over the past couple of months i have been regularly beating him. nothing bad but i have had a running streak of consistently beating him. since, i don’t have much in my life to brag about it felt good to know that i could always fall back on beating bill in racquetball. this has been my conversational “ace in the hole”. anytime i entered a conversation in which people were bragging i knew that i had my racquetball victories to fall back on. they might brag saying “i’ve just discovered a cure for sinus congestion” (a discovery they should be very proud of) but i knew that i could respond with “well, i consistently beat bill pruitt in racquetball”.no matter what someone else was proclaim as great i’ve always been able to declare my wins against my pastor in the adult equivalent of “wall ball”.
this was true until earlier today.
i lost to bill pruitt in racquetball. i could make up a mirade of excuses but the truth is he beat me. sure my game was off, i had a burger king whopper sitting on my stomach, i was dealing with emotional strife, my ankles were bruised, my eyes were blurring badly, my kidneys were bleeding, my dog had just been run over, i had just ended a fight with my kids, and my hairline was receding. yet none of that matters. bill beat me somewhat fair and square. it’s a terrible, no-good, rotten day