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February 16, 2004
Disc golf injury #1
Well, it finally happened...
After all the near-miss K.O.'s on the back 9, the rockslides, the scorpions, and the many other times when dumb luck prevailed, the moment arrived when the luck ran out.
And that was this morning.
Cut to...
The midday sun shining brightly through the trees. The cloudless sky forcing an unexpected heat on the open sections of San Diego's Morley Field disc golf course.
On this holiday, the inviting weather had lured out all varieties of golfer, most with dogs in tow. Every tee had a slight backup, and everyone was engaging in relaxed conversation. Shooting through a band of 5 hippies to distance ourselves from a pair of Christian Reformist Youth Ministers, Alan and I found ourselves at Tee 13.
The injurious tee:
Shorter than the rest, uneven at the end. Perilous indeed.
Thanks to Gene, who gets a photo credit for luckily shooting this tee.
Alan and I sit on the bench at 13, waiting for the boys in front of us to finish up. The hippies are climbing the hill toward us. Cute hippies. Big hair, sunglass-clad, short pants kind of hippies. Maybe a backwards hat in there somewhere. Tee-shirts with sarcastic slogans on them.
In my trademark sideways skip-hop tee shot, I prance forcefully down the cement.
I release my disc, and lift my left foot like a ballerina in follow-through.
I am of course a stylish disc golfer, if not an accurate one.
But on this go-round I slide off the end of the tee.
My foot catches, my ankle rolls,
and down I go in a heap.
Instantly humiliated by the show of concern from Alan and the hippies, I jump up. I laugh energetically and hop around like an idiot, mentally reliving my startled yelp and my flailing limbs as I went ass over teakettle into the dirt.
Man ... I fell down. In front of people. I fell down in front of cute hippie people!
Who does that?
Well, I do. And when I do it, I do it with unmatched bravado.
Oddly, although this was my first disc golf injury, it was not my first golf injury. That I sustained in the 8th grade P.E., when some bitchy blonde girl nailed me in the back of the head with a driver.
But really now, who could have called that?
I hardly think of it. And it clearly didn't have an effect on me ... I mean. Clearly.
And I guess it could have been worse. Aside from having one foot that's somewhat larger than the other, and promising to display some pretty colors over the next few days, all that was really injured was my dignity.
Perhaps I should have laid there in the dust a little longer, and waited for that overly-chivalrous Adonis who's out there somewhere to scoop me up and carry me to his jaguar, speeding off to his mansion where he would bandage my foot while I batted my damsel-in-distress eyes and sipped champagne.
Perhaps I should fall down more often. Or use rolling around in dirt as a conversation starter, give Mr. Attractive Suave Wealthy Sensitive Disc Golfer a little time to arrive.
After all, if a guy sees you fall down right at the beginning ...
there's nowhere to go but up.
Posted by kati at February 16, 2004 10:37 PM
Comments
If only your life were more like Sense and Sensibility, you could have had your own Willaby ride in and carry you out of the rain...the rain of humiliation and hippie boys and stray discs and...
I don't know where I'm going with this.
Posted by: robyn at February 17, 2004 11:50 AM
Damn, if it was going to happen at all, why did it have to happen in front of cute hippies? From the way you describe them, it makes me think of the scrubby guys Alicia Silverstone talks about in Clueless, which is a modern remake of another Jane Austen novel, Emma... "and we're supposed to swoon? As if!" Maybe that's what you should have pretended to faint; that's fittingly Austen-esque. I'm sure I've told you this before, but I also was injured in 8th grate golf; except I only got it in the ankle instead of the head. Ouch! Take care of that foot!
Posted by: Kristina at February 17, 2004 10:41 PM
i fell down on a date once. it was a hiking date and i was climbing on some rocks to impress him, forgetting that the menfolk are supposed to do the impressing. and then i fell off like a big idiot. it was like if spiderman had suddenly lost his stickyness.
Posted by: didofoot at February 18, 2004 08:41 AM
and then you (kristen) gimped forever! it was hilarious. not that i laugh at other people's pain.
dood, robyn, but willoughby was a jackass! and i don't know how to spell his name.
Posted by: michele at February 18, 2004 01:30 PM
he wasn't a jackass, he just was trying to marry for money like a girl.
Posted by: tandemperson at February 18, 2004 01:57 PM
itisisadakothatcausedyoutofallSADAKOSADAKOSADAKO
Posted by: Sadako at February 18, 2004 06:11 PM
man, i'm so sorry about that... she came right out of my TV and made me do it! Damn HBO... playing that friggin' movie all the time. I should unplug my TV more often...
Posted by: Kristina at February 18, 2004 06:30 PM
I can't imagine what an attack by Sadako on the disc golf course would entail...
She halts and twitches into view, coming out from behind a Eucalyptus tree and some old men smoking a doobie. She's all wet ... maybe from the sprinklers. Discs fly right through her. There's no escape.
Posted by: kati at February 18, 2004 11:12 PM
Kati, you forgot the best part of the story. After lingering about at the the 420 hole, hole #11, what I can only describe as a biker hippie disc golfer was kind enough to fill our pipe for some much needed... "herbal refreshment." And you took the pain like a trooper, even trying play another hole.
Posted by: Alan at February 19, 2004 12:18 AM
Discer, cha.
Posted by: Alan at February 19, 2004 12:23 AM