R-Ball chronicles part IV

The games started at 6pm last night, and at 8:45pm I walked onto the court for the final match against David. He happens to be Lyza's guitar teacher every other Thursday after school, a part-time Kinko's employee, and the Ektelon-sponsored Flagstaff athletic club racquetball director. We play each other every other week or so, and lately we had been close to dead even. He'd win one week, and I'd win the next. He has nice tournament bags, and 4- racquets I'd love to own.

The first game was a dogfight until we got to around 8-8. Diving, hitting some defensive shots, and getting lucky on a few plays, I was hanging in there with him by running him front to back and side to side. I got on a roll with a few consecutive service aces and survived a late rally from David to take game 1. I was tired, and managed to completely miss a ball in the back corner with the racquet hitting my shin full-speed. Yup - a full blown egg-like contusion is sitting there this morning. I call that a rookie mark.

Game two started off 5-5, but I could feel he was fading a bit...missing shots he normally makes and his serve had become as predictable as a Republican political campaign. I didn't really put any hammer down per se because I didn't have one to put down. I just kept the ball in play, and allowed him plenty of opportunities to make mistakes, and most importantly, I didn't mentally check out assuming I'd win. It was over by 9:15 and I was home at 9:30. 800mg of Ibuprofin for the leg wound, a burrito, a million ounces of OJ and into bed dreaming about hitting with one of those new Ektelon racquets. See, David didn't bring a prize for the winner because he was confident that he would take the tourney. I won't get a free $250 racquet out of this, but I get bragging rights at the Flag Athletic Club, an Uber-gay long sleeve that says "CHAMPION" on the sleeve that I'll never wear in public and.......maybe I can shame him into one of his racquets for $50.