It's like I lack the common sense God gave paint. I continue to come out to these grueling events, despite knowing the pain it will inflict. This time, just to make it worse, a friend of mine decides to throw a nice house party for some friends and fellow volleyballers the night before the event (a great host by the way). Oh, it will just be a nice relaxing cookout the night before and we'll end early he says (apparently a liar too).
The next thing I know it's 2am, people are drunk, someone's being accused of being gay, I've heard the term "ass punch" too many times, and we're on a golf course hitting balls towards people's houses. Time to go home. So I pack up the two babes I brought with me and we start the trek home. Those in the area know it takes a minimum of 25 minutes to get anywhere in this city. So 2 wrong turns and 2 houses later, I'm hitting the hay at 3:30. Oh yeah, nothing like 3 hours of sleep before an all day tournament.
Now I have to leave even earlier to swap a truck out, buy some water and grapes and grab a friend and breakfast. Bojangles seemed like a good idea at the time. Back to the "locked in the bathroom" incident. Ugh. Now I'm tired, sick and already dehydrated.
They tell you to start strong and finish strong. I never listen to "them". I choked my first and last games. Which ended up being a good thing. It's like us Bronze people are so bad we can't even play without injuring ourselves. At least 2 nice bleeding cuts, a few rolled ankles, a couple of pulled hamstrings, a serious knee-twist, a bent back fingernail, a bent back toenail a series of bruises and a few sunburns later and we're in the semi-finals.
At this point dehydration is setting in for everyone and I choke in the 2nd game of my semi-final to lose by 2 to the eventual King and Queen. At first I'm disappointed with myself., but then I see what happens to my injury-prone friend Chris and I'm happy to not be there. I think he managed to hurt everything on him in that 2nd game. He actually cramped up going for a ball and everyone was too tired to help him up. He finished out to try and help Annie get points but it wasn't pretty.
At least he didn't get slammed in the 'privates' like I did earlier. That was a "TV timeout". In all we all had a great time and once again a short man ends up second, so maybe Marvin Gaye was wrong.
Thanks to all who made my day great: Amy A, Janine, Liz, Linda, Chris, Ryan and Terry from my net for putting up with me. and Danny, Elizabeth and George in the playoffs. And kudos to Ryan (a funny man and great hustler) for screaming to all that could hear, "I want a t-shirt after this that says 'that's the worst rule ever!'"
Thanks again to Vaughn for organizing and maybe one day you guys will hear horror stories from the Silver nets. I'll miss the next one due to the Annual Raleigh Jaycee Pet Trek (http://www.raleighjaycees.org/projects/PetTrek/)
Hope everyone had as much fun as I did, without all
the pain,
Clay "wow, why does THAT still hurt?!" Berry