odd man out
Last night the BakPak, our little posse of families in exile in Bakersfield, hung out and ate at The Pumpkin’s BFF’s house. Well, not quite all of us. Wednesday night has become “basketball night” for the guys. Well, not quite all of the guys. Let me start over: Wednesday night has become “basketball night” for all of the guys—except me.
Full disclosure: I hate sports. Okay, maybe “hate” is overstating it a bit. I don’t care about sports. I don’t watch sports. I don’t play sports. Okay, full disclosure again: I suck at sports.
Yes, all sports.
That’s not to say that I didn’t try when I was a kid. I have too many participation trophies to count, from years of t-ball and baseball, AYSO soccer, tennis lessons, even freakin’ Boy Scout bowling tournaments. I am just not athletically inclined [and I look it]. I never watched sporting events on television with my dad, because, though he played football in high school, I can’t remember him watching sports on t.v. I don’t know the rules to football or basketball—I can fake it with soccer, but let’s face it, nobody cares about soccer. [“Nobody” meaning the population of Americans who think “football” can only mean that game played with an oval projectile of brown pigskin—not, obviously, the entire rest of the sports-watching world.] Last year, at our annual Super Bowl party [read: excuse to eat lots and maybe laugh at a commercial or two] I think only BFF’s dad watched any meaningful portion of the game, though la dra. actually likes and understands football, having grown up at the knee of her career-Navy dad in front of the t.v. on Sunday afternoons.
When I was a kid, I used to read all the entertainment news I could get my hands on so I could talk like I had seen whatever movies or t.v. shows that were on after my way-too-early bedtime that my classmates were talking about. That little social survival skill has made me a sponge for useless pop culture trivia about things I’ve never watched, listened to, or read myself. But all that “guy stuff” that I’m supposed to know? Yeah, not so much. So a few weeks ago when we were all enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon at our house and the guys were outside on the patio, talking about cars? Zipped lips, my friends. Sports talk? Even worse. They try to include me, they really do, and I appreciate it, but when they start in on last night’s game or favorite teams or whatever, I’m lost. And really, it’s not like I necessarily want to be not lost. I’m almost 33, it’s not like I’m going to suddenly discover I’ve got this untapped hidden passion for sports and cars and do-it-yourselfing. Instead, I’ve cultivated the silent-nod-of-interest into an artform.
So last night the moms stayed behind while two of the dads and a dad-to-be went to play b-ball. At least they know me well enough not to even make the polite but futile gesture of asking if I wanna come. Heh. Before the guys took off, they were standing in the kitchen talking—what else—sports. The ladies were at the dining table, talking graphically about the mechanics of childbirth and breastfeeding. While 2 years as a SAHD and my college feminist credentials [plus being married to a doctor—and being the non-doc among docs talking shop is a whole other ballgame] have inured me to such talk, I was still, bad pun intended, the odd man out there, but no more so than back in the kitchen. So I flitted back and forth, with copious amounts of time spent in between, on the living room floor, with the kids.
And hey, as long as I’m called back to the table by the time the ice cream comes out, it’s all good.
Thursday, January 25, 2007