An Interesting hobby

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far, far away, (in fact it was this one), there was Mr. Ohh!.

Here I go, stealing beginnings again. This one is from Star Wars. If you knew this, perhaps you’ll grant me a bit of leeway. Either way I’m not planning on apologizing. If you didn’t, KRAP!! I could’ve gotten away with something and you’d have thought I was super cool, coming up with this awesome catchphrase. Oh well, may as well start the story.

Long before I had pets, children, a wife, a mortgage, burnt Saturday night dinners, and a taste for bourbon; I threw knives as a hobby. It’s actually a lot of fun, and I got pretty good. My friends laughed at me, because I tacked up fantasy-posters to my four-by-eight plywood target. I was very good at nailing unicorns, and dragons. But always left the mermaids alone, because I was a teenage boy, and you know, Mermaids. Enough said about that.

Stiff competition

I actually became so good, I entered some competitions. I even came home with ribbons, for my trophy case. I was proud of myself for competing at this level, and frankly that’s what the ribbons were for; Being There. Everyone is a participation ribbon. While I was a legend in my own mind, I wasn’t in the throwing alleys.

I won a round or two. It’s just that when I got closer to the last rounds, Others, figuratively, wiped the floor with me. Not that they couldn’t literally do it. Some of those girls were pretty tough. But I digress.

You see, I’d only been throwing for a few years, whereas the prize winners had done it all their lives. I remember one guy who bragged he practiced for six hours every day. I don’t think about girls for six hours every day, and I think about girls a lot. Mermaids too, but let’s not get into that. What I will say is, it’s a whole lot easier to think about mermaids, than practice knife throwing.

I don’t remember how many, but I saw him win several prizes. Others, like him had dedicated their lives to the sport. Good for them, I guess. But there’s a whole lot of world, out there. I could never dedicate my life to only one thing. Well, perhaps mermaids, but again let’s leave that weirdness alone.

I want my life back

I once had a district manager tell me I shouldn’t perform on stage, because the company might need me in the evenings. He called this loyalty. I called it… Well, you can guess what I’d call it. In the comics, it would be something like, “#$%@&%x$” I’m not sure I spelled that right, but I think you get the message.

All this came up recently as I was watching the recent Winter Olympics. Did you see any of that? I was watching some of the snowboarding events, and all I can say is, “Those folks are nuts.” And skiers aren’t much better.

I saw one side story where we watched one guy training. He got up every morning at three-in-the-morning just to strap a snowboard to his feet, and jumped on a trampoline to practice stunts for several hours. If someone asked me to do that when I was seventeen, I’d have been talking in those symbols again.

What’s worse is, after he did all that, he had to go to high school. High school is stressful enough without worrying if you can complete a Nollie Canadian-bacon-grab, while doing an inverted 720 over the tail corkscrew backflip. I’m exhausted just saying that. I’m certainly not going to practice it. I had enough trouble with algebra. The trick requires trigonometry, and my high school didn’t offer that. Thank heaven!

Girlfriend woes

Of course, they had to show pictures of him with his girlfriend. On camera they were all smiles. I don’t believe it for a second. Girlfriends require lots of time. The guy had none. He trained for five hours in the morning, went to school for seven, then hit the slopes for eight more. The girlfriend might get fifteen minutes in the lunchroom five days a week.

That’s just not enough. Unless of course, she was dating several world-class athletes. She could catch a few minutes a day with each and that might satisfy her girlfriend needs. But that leads to a slew of different problems when she starts getting their names mixed up. I’m just saying.

Then there’s ice skating. A friend of mine’s daughter got involved in this sport. She was pretty good too. Between meets, practices, and special events, my friend never stopped driving. Then one day she looked up at him and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” Forgetting about her for a moment, my friend just wasted ten years of his life. To this day he calls it the dark time.

As for his daughter, she hung it up at age fifteen. She decided she’d rather be a girlfriend. As I said before that takes more time than training for the Olympics. But I digress.

It’s tough to be the best…

Then there’s team sports like hockey. Those athletes don’t train like ice skaters, but to make it at the Olympic level they do train long and hard. They do this for what you’d call a two-week long season. The better you are, the longer you play. Have you ever played hockey? It’s painful! Once a week is too much. I couldn’t ever think about playing a game every day for two whole weeks. All I can say is; I wish I had the pain-killer concession at that venue!

Admittedly these are the top athletes in the world. Maybe they should train longer and harder than I would. Sure, they can say they went to Milan. But did they see very much outside the Olympic village? Trust me, I’ve seen Olympic villages. They’re rather boring. So, there’s a choice; I could be a top athlete and spend all my waking hours in a smelly gym training, or I can actually do stuff. I pick do stuff

So I’m not doing it!

This is why I watch Curling. You can’t get bazillion dollar endorsements for being an expert curler. You can do pretty well as a hair curler, but this is beside the point. Curlers need to have a job. They need to walk up to their boss every four years and ask for several weeks off to go to Europe and sweep ice. If I was the boss, I’d tell them they were nuts, but they can take any vacation they want. It’s a free country.

Of course, they could be a hair curler with sweeping locks, that curls and sweeps ice on the side. In this case they’d be the boss who’d tell them they were nuts. They’d probably already know that.

Only a crazy person would play curling professionally. I’ve actually played it. It’s a weird game. Then again, I’m a weird person. So perhaps, it was inevitable that I would. You see it’s something I can do. I can’t ski, snowboard, play hockey, do a quadruple lutz, or dance on ice with a synchronized partner.

If I tried any of that…

I’d Hurt Myself!!!