We Came to Drink

Some of you may not know I'm in a volleyball league. We play grass vball down at the Little Marina Green w/ the Golden Gate Sport and Social Club. Generally a good time. Our team name is We Came To Drink. Any questions? The irony is that we are actually pretty good despite all the beer we consume. Or is that because of all the beer we consume? Hmmm... Anyway, we finally moved up to the highest division this season. Our first match was last night. Talk about a comedy of errors!

I had told our captain I'm out for the first three weeks at least. The first two due to my ankle and the third week due to a trip to Texas. He wrote me yesterday saying we were probably going to have to forfeit since no girls could play. I told him if he needed me to just stand on the court so we didn't have to forfeit I could do that, I just can't really play. So I became the pawn.

I roll into the Little Marina Green (after my car fiasco) in my work clothes. Luckily I had my gym bag since I'd made it to the gym in the morning. I went hobbling up to my crew. Four of the guys were there last night. Everyone was cracking up (as they should be) as I come hobbling up as the sole female representative of the team. I went to the bathroom to change and then came back out. Turns out, of the 5 of us there, only 1 was healthy. Our team looked something like this:

Me: air cast and cane
T: knee brace, ankle brace (he sprained it the night before playing softball)
D: injured elbow
V: had been home sick all day
G: the sole healthy person among us.

Since we only had one girl we could only play 3 guys on the court at a time. Worked out well since our opponents only had four as well. The other team was laughing their asses off at us. It had to be hilarious to watch us "walk" onto the court. They were really good fun and were total sweethearts. Anytime they spiked the ball and it came anywhere near me they apologized. They would either hit the ball right to me, or totally away from me so I didn't have to move. The impressive part is we actually ended up with about 5 points each game. Not bad for a bunch of cripples. I actually haven't had that much fun playing volleyball in a long time. It was just a good laugh. We knew we weren't going to win so we just had fun with it. And the other team was great and totally had a sense of humor so that made it really nice as well.

After the match was over I was named MVP. Should I be offended it takes an aircast and cane to finally be named the MVP? :-)

We decided that this could be our new shtick. Even when we're all healthy again, we're still going to show up every week with our various braces and slings and whatnot to throw the other teams off. Then when it comes time for the playoffs we're going to take them all off and dominate. Yeah, it's good to dream. We also decided we should change our name to the Crips. Or perhaps the Crypts and really throw people off. "What? They're all white kids!"

Oh well, all in all a rather entertaining evening. My ankle doesn't like me much today. Old instincts are hard to fight even when you're injured. Instant reaction is to go after the ball. Unfortunately, it was immediately followed by instant pain when I acted on that. Oh well, a good evening full of good laughs. Who could ask for anything more?