Wednesday, June 22, 2005

We’re in a fight

My co-worker, D., and I had plans to play tennis the other night. I told her I had to eat dinner first (food is my primary motivation in life) and that I would call her when I was done. Also, I said, I needed to shave my legs.


“You’re shaving your legs?” she asked, unhappily.

“I have to,” I replied.

“Don’t shave your legs,” she pleaded. “If you shave, we’re in a fight.”


This is D.’s most-used expression. Hand her a sarcastic comment? We’re in a fight. Make fun of her? We’re in a fight. Toss out a platitude when one of her projects goes wrong? We’re in a fight. It’s a handy little expression.


After dinner, I called her at her office because she was still at work (of course).

“I’ve eaten,” I told her.

“Are you shaved?” she demanded.

Rolling my eyes, I told her that I planned to take care of that part while she went home and changed.

We finally found an available tennis court (D. swore that the first two courts we went to were never in use when she jogged passed them at the same time of day on other days), but there were some people circuit training around the perimeter. We weren’t sure, at first, what they were up to. Some of the women were suspiciously perky. Do they not have to work for a living (this was Highland Park, after all), or did they have a crush on their trainer? Or, even worse, were they the type of people who got all cheerful at the thought of exercise?


I should mention at this point that D. and I are both terrible tennis players. D. played various sports in college, and she runs a lot, so she’s in pretty good shape. I, on the other hand, am not. I love tennis, but I can’t run for long periods of time, and since we’re not good at tennis, we spent most of our time running after stray balls. I was glad whenever I hit a ball too hard and D. had to run after it because it meant she had her back to me and I could surreptitiously check my watch. After about 45 minutes I declared an inability to play any longer.


“Let’s just play ‘til 8:30,” she said. “Then we’ll get in a full hour.”


I was sure to let her know when 8:30 rolled around, but then she wanted to play until we could hit the ball back and forth 30 times. When it became painfully obvious that we could play until next Tuesday and we still wouldn’t be able to make that happen, she lowered her standards to 20. Then 10. Then 5. Finally, she had to admit defeat. Or rather, she was willing to let me admit defeat. She ran lines while I cooled my tired body with a slow walk around the court.


What it must be like to be fit!

4 comments:

JLR said...

You have not commented at all on my blog today. We're in fight.

Deals On Wheels said...

I cannot wait to play again tomorrow. We should run sprints to warm up.

We should also play lacrosse. Fun, fun game. I have two sticks, so we can play "catch".

Oh, and THE RUNT (a.k.a. my sister) was super jealous when she found out that we played tennis. She thinks we should ALL get together and play sometime. This, of course, includes the dominent twin. However, there is a catch. THE RUNT doesn't want to play doubles on MY team. Oh, no. She knows how BAD I am. She wants to be paired with the dominent twin (kind of like TEAM SMU). That means you and me will be on the same team (we will lose). According to THE RUNT, though, twins can't be on the same team because they will communicate (and I quote) "via telepathy". This would, of course, be an unfair advantage.

Right...

Deals On Wheels said...

Oh, and by the way, we are in a fight...

RR said...

You will be running sprints alone.

It should be the two of us against your sister. She doesn't get to have another player. It's not fair to us. We don't want to get completely skunked. JLR can be there, but she can't do much work. Let me know when the runt is feeling better. Or better yet, let's go ahead and play while she's unwell! She's weak! We might win!