Frisbee with a Girl

To this day it never ceases to amaze me how mindless I was as a kid, so gung-ho about having it my own way. But one thing doesn't surprise me anymore, just how mindful everyone else was. Especially girls. They towered over my understanding. I was like a worm, mentally crawling through the dirt, absolutely sure of the ground, and they were somewhere in the clouds, saying "aww, that's adorable." But what do boys got? "You throw like a girl!" (Yeah, those famous last words.) Screw The Sandlot. At least, that was the wisdom of the era, but prepare to come back in a body bag. So naturally, I could always count on girls to blow my mind, or if not, to kick my butt.

The summers I had growing up usually meant I was stuck at daycare on the days my parents worked, which meant long afternoons of heatstroke in the blazing backyard of the sitter's house with nothing but the occasional tube-Popsicle or hard plastic kiddy pool with more grass in it than water to give us some relief. Each day after lunch we were all just stuck out in the backyard like dogs to while away the hours with the clouds and the ants, and that was all there was. In any case, you can imagine why we might start getting on each other's nerves out there in the heat.

So there I was, about 9-years-old, scuffing the grass like a rearing bull, upset with this girl there because she had no intention of going along or playing off the arm of whatever grand make-believe movie I was trying to make with her, and at some point a Frisbee entered the equation. We tossed it back and forth at each other for a few minutes or so, but she just couldn't throw the thing right. It'd always end up rolling back somewhere toward the bushes and the trees, and I'd always have to go fish it out "because I was closer." This happened time and time again, so I began purposely throwing it wrong at her just to get back at her for her lame "girl-tosses"... just to make her have to run after it for a change.

A bit of a shouting match ensued, and I'm sure I flung out the inevitable "you throw like a girl" line, from which there is no return. I was a dead man. And sure enough, on one of her turns, she winged that thing with a perfect precision there-before unseen... and on target too, right between my eyes! Clonk!

It hit my face so hard I fell over backwards on the ground. My eye and nose stung for a few minutes, and she couldn't help from cracking up. Sure, it had been an accident, but a very well timed one! Almost too well timed. And so there I lay on the grass, emasculated, which got me so enraged I stormed off to "tell on her." Here we go, I thought, let's see how she likes this! I really played it up too when I got to the sliding glass door: "she hit me on purpose!" I may have even tried to shed a few tears. But that sitter did the right thing. She said, "Oh don't be a crybaby. You're not hurt." And I swear the second she said that, the "pain" was gone.  

If only she'd been good at it, I thought, then I could say it was on purpose! Something told me she knew what she was doing all along.

Here's the lesson kids. This is why it's always a good idea for girls and boys to play together, because that's how valuable lessons are learned. That day I learned that when it comes to getting even with someone by hitting them with a Frisbee on purpose, two words reign supreme: plausible deniability. Girls know this by birthright. We boys learn it the hard way, if at all. We think we're hot shits, but in fact, when it comes to girls bulls-eyeing grumpy boys, it's always 5 points for the arm, 20 points for the head!

I'm just lucky she didn't want to play the game of splits!