A silly game of football

Beautiful, beautiful day out today.
So lately I haven’t been doing much other than working on my dissertation and finding uncreative ways to act out from stress involved with writing said dissertation, or the onslaught of well-meaning people who ask me about a future job which seems increasingly likely to exist and I will end up digging a hole in Alabama and talking to rolypolys or the fact that I can’t even understand that recording of the Scottish woman who tells me to hold or checks my security information when I call Scottish Power to ask if it’s true that my bill really is $1300 or my first born child. And when I'm stressed I like to be melodramatic because it amuses me and also because it's infinitely more satisfying. So I sulk around the flat, or absolutely refuse to clean my flat until I have no clean utensils and end up just burning my tongue trying to eat soup without a spoon or I sit around and bake pies and watch Pushing Daisies or go grocery shopping just to start crying at the cash register when the worker asks if I’m finding everything I need because, do we really ever find what we need? Would we even want to? What if we aren’t even sure what we were looking for? And the guy at the register is all like…um… I meant did you need help finding the milk or anything? Which I haven't actually done, but Will and I were talking and agreed that it would be a very fun thing to do.

So anyway, that’s where I’ve been lately.

My neighbor has recently been inviting me to play football (soccer) with a bunch of people on sundays and today I decided, what the heck, and went out despite the fact that I have no experience playing whatsoever. But it was perfect. The air was chilly, like maybe mid 60s, and it was windy. There were a ton of people playing and it was all good fun, despite the fact that mostly I just hung out “playing defense” by which I mean ran around so that people I knew were good at least had someone near them even though we all know if it came to it there is no way I could do anything, and occasionally if the guy with the ball was running and nobody was guarding him I would run up and stay between them and the goal, which I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to do because I got lots of congratulations for it, but mostly I just sort of watched the game while standing on the field and did what people shouted for someone to do.

It was a really good time, people of all ages were playing. There was this old guy, probably 70s or so. He didn’t run too much, but he did sometimes and he liked to steal the ball from the hot stuffs trying to show off, then he would pass it to one of the little kids and go back to walking around. There were a bunch of kids, maybe 6 years old at the youngest and they would touch the ball, I mean just barely touch it, and instantly the older guys on their team would shout “BRILLIANT!” “Amazing foot work!” “Incredible, world cup, mate.” And those little boys would just beam and beam like little boys do as their older brothers ran behind them and slapped them on the back of the head. And it didn’t really matter how many people were on a team, they just let anyone who wanted to play on the field. And the sun would periodically peek through the clouds, making it so it wasn’t ever cold, but not warming it up so much that it was hot in the jersey shirts running around.

Stewart, my neighbor, apologized because there were some more hard core guys on the teams that week- they aren’t normally this aggressive, he said- and they were doing things like hogging the ball (to which you would undirected hear cries of “You know, it’s allowed to pass in football”) or steal the ball from the little ones. But it was generally accepted that it detracted from the game, not added to it, and one time from behind me I heard one of the older men (and really good players) say “Not too serious lads, we’re just going to play a silly game of football.” At which point I started laughing because I imagined tons of Scottish men of all ages running around the field giggling with their hands in the air over their heads, all doing runs that would be valid in the ministry of silly walks, tossing the football back and forth, and singing and dancing… you know, a silly game of football. But then I looked as one of the guys was patting his bum, taunting his friend as he threw it in, and members of separate teams laughing about fouls and everyone talking about how THIS was the world cup game and the occasional guy skipping across the field and I realized they were serious, they really did just want to play that silly game of football. And I just smiled as they joked because the parts I understood were funny and friendly and it was such a perfect day to be playing a silly game of sunday football.
It was good.
Real good.

I think I'll go again.

Also, while out there, I was reminded of the time in the 6th grade PE class so now I’ll tell you about that too. We had a lot of chauvinistic guys in our class, so despite our teacher Mr Lion’s best efforts to make things equal, the guys would do everything in their power to stop girls from ever getting near the ball or the action of a game. I thought of this because playing soccer is one of those times where I’m not offended for not getting the ball at all. I don’t expect to. I know I suck at football. In fact, I was just thrilled when those guys would pass it to me today, because they wanted everyone to play. It was really nice of them. But some sports, like volleyball or ultimate frisbee, I actually at one point in my life was pretty decent at and get real pissed when some know-it-all asshole runs from his side of the court to knock me aside and get it. I mean in those games I actually can contribute, and even if I couldn't stealing the ball/frisbee from me would certainly not help. Dicks.

Anyway, back to sixth grade: You know how sometimes as a kid you become the hero and everyone is like WOAAAAAAAAh and they get all obsessed and everyone talks about how good you are at crazy eights or drawing or singing and you are like the hero even if maybe in hindsight it turns out you aren’t that good, but at the time you are considered the expert so they all go to you to help them draw a squirrel or something? And you know how you feel like the greatest thing that has ever happened and you start to think that maybe you should get a job in whatever it is, like do they maybe have professional pretty handwriting people? Well, this is about one of those moments.

Like I said, my class had a bunch of twerps who were convinced that girls didn’t even have the capacity to understand sports. I remember the guys would carefully explain what they wanted you to do like you were a child… I mean, we were children, but SO WERE THEY and that’s my point. Like we would play this game where you would kick a ball and then run to a base which was a mat so lots of people could be on it at once, but before you kicked the guys would be like “Ok, when the ball gets here kick it, and then you need to run to that base, you see it? See it? The one over there. That’s the one you run to first.” And we would all be like “Yeah, Whateva. I’ve been playing this since, like… the second grade, and I think I figured it out in 4 years. Pshha” But they would do it every time. It was really annoying. So there was this one kid, Pat, who was particularly bad about it. And one day, he had a sprained ankle. We were playing kickball, and if you don’t know, the person is automatically out if you catch the ball. Now, I’m not claiming to have good hand eye coordination or to be a great athlete by any means. Mostly when I played basketball I was playing this game in my own head where I raced everyone for the ball or to be the first one across the court when it changed sides, which I guess is why I liked running. But sometimes, and it happens more the more I play, sometimes I can be really good. So this day when Pat had a sprained ankle, I was near him, but sort of behind. The first kid got up to bat and kicked. It was in the air, going super fast, and coming straight towards me. Pat had this look of dread on his face like I was about to ruin all his hopes and dreams because there was no way he could get to it in time, and if he wasn't there nobody could get it, but I just reached up and plucked it out of the air. It was beautiful. Then, it happened again. And again. All three times one of those things where you just are on FIRE and are everywhere you need to be. After the last one, where I jumped in the air way over our heads and grabbed it, the whole room was quiet and then everyone broke out cheering. And after that everyone at recess talked about how they wanted me on their team and the guys would pass to me even if Mr Lion hadn’t made a rule that you had to alternate if a boy got it and a girl got it. And I was the queen of kickball.

I mean, unfortunately, it was in the spring and so we only played like twice more before school got out for the summer and then we moved to middle school so it didn’t last long since in middle school people there didn't realize I am the queen of kickball. Oh well. I could still beat most of them on the hurdles, which might have been why I picked that particular event.

TL;DR version: One of the guys started trash talking, another guy looked at him and said “Dinnae talk shite, mate”