Shirts and Skins Tennis

Good evening!

Our forefathers died so we could
eat hot dogs on red, white, and
blue everything.

First of all, to all my American friends and readers, Happy 4th of July!  Let's celebrate by grilling dead animal flesh on a pile of charcoal, drinking adult beverages, and blowing things up.  It's what the founding fathers had in mind, I'm sure, when they spilled their blood on the battle fields against the British...who are now one of the U.S.'s best friends.  Fun how things work out.  Given the mess the U.S. Government has made of the place I'm starting to wonder how things would have looked had we just stayed under
the rule of good old crazy King George.

I digress.

Yes, this is why the Revolutionaries
fought the war.  Right here.  This is
Exactly what the framers of the
Declaration of Independence wanted
to protect.

Anyway, today being the country's birthday and all, most people are off work...unless you work at a grocery store, a retail store, a furniture store, a place that sells gas, any emergency medical facility, a car dealership, a fast food place, Denny's, any bar, any bowling facility...you get my drift, a lot of people still have to work. But not me, and not hubby.

So we slept all the way in to 7:30 this morning, got up, had some coffee and pancakes  (I love it when hubby cooks for me.)  We got Skippy off to work at his job  (he's working his sixth consecutive 4th of July at Culvers.  This year he works open to close.) We kissed Peaches, who went to the late viewing of "Despicable Me" last night and was therefore tired, and we went to tennis.

Hubby found this nice, secret, out of the way tennis court.  The fenced area is way wider and the fences are taller, so I'm really happy to announce I did not hit anything over the fence this time!  I have also figured out how to hit a back hand shot without sending it behind me...I use both hands on the racket and fire it like I'm hitting left handed in a baseball game.  Hubby is impressed 1) that I actually hit some back hand shots in the right direction and 2) that I don't grunt when I do it.

We were having a lovely time and then THEY showed up.  You know that couple that wrecks normal people's fun just because they show up.  They're young, they're fit, they ride their bikes everywhere so they've already got a nice shine to their skin whenever they show up.  They drink water from glass bottles with foreign names instead of those super thin plastic bottles that flatten when you drink from them.  (Seriously, we're about one step away from juice bags with these water bottles.  I'm all for using less plastic and whatnot, but the other day I folded my empty water bottle and put it in my pocket.)

These are the kind of people who are so gloriously in shape they truly make the rest of us feel like hiding in a hole because we are too ugly to be in the same world. They looked like this: 

 

I'm not exaggerating.  Okay, maybe a little.  But they pulled up on the bikes and he was talking all rude about her bike.  And she looked like she hated riding her bike.  She parked it behind the dumpster near the tennis courts. He said something smug about the dumpster guys picking up and then he would buy her a new bike. You known that tone some guys take when they think they know everything about this machine or that and whatever machine you have doesn't measure up?  Yeah, he was that guy. 

 

I lost all interest in tennis.  I wanted to hide.  There she was in her sports bra, and not under a big giant T-shirt like I wear it, no just a sports bra...a WHITE sports bra.  And those little shorts that super fit women wear, the kind that hug your thighs...unlike my shorts which hug my thighs because the material is stretched to the max and the shorts have no other choice. She and I might both be female, but we are NOT of the same species.

 

He was wearing a muscle shirt.  I hate muscle shirts.  Muscle shirts are always worn by guys whose big move to impress a woman is to remove the muscle shirt.

 

I was not disappointed...it was only 70 degrees  (Fahrenheit) and there was a cool breeze, but that muscle shirt was OFF about nine seconds after they hit the court. So they were going for a shirts and skins, or maybe a skins and skins match.  Fortunately for me, they opted to play on the courts in the OTHER fenced area as opposed to playing on the court next to ours.  This gave Hubby and me a chance to tennis without apologizing to our neighbors when I whacked a ball into their court...and it gave me the chance to really focus on what they were saying and doing without looking more creepy to them than I already did.

 

Turns out...she was as bad at tennising as I am.  She just looked way better at being bad at it.  My guess is she's a gym rat who got those abs like my friend Dee did at Golds, through hours and hours of classes and weight lifting.  That would explain why, after dismounting her real world bike, she walked like I do when I get off a bike:  Like her whole body hurt and she wanted to lie down and let her female parts stop throbbing...in that bad way they do when you spend time on a bicycle.

 

He, meanwhile, was clearly that guy that rides his bike to work and work is in another county.  He strutted around like he wasn't just watching the Tour de France for the fun of it, but that those were his peeps. 

 

He was definitely the guy trying to teach his girl how to tennis correctly.  And he didn't care who knew it.

 

See, Hubby might give me a few pointers, but mostly he just chases after my balls when I'm blessed enough to actually hit them over the net.  Sometimes we talk about stuff in our day.  Mostly though, we just hit the ball back and forth and laugh when something really funny happens.

 

This guy...well he was trying to coach her.  Loudly.

 

At one point we collected our balls and met at the net and Hubby kissed me and said, "There's no way you're going to be as mad at me as she will be at him when this day is over."

 

Truer words were never spoken.  See, after we finished tennis, Hubby took me to get an iced coffee.  We drove, in a vehicle.  And then I read a little and took a nap.  Sports Bra and Muscle Shirt had to get on their bikes and ride off to the next thing he was going to force her to learn.

 

I like my 4th of July much better.

 

So happy 4th to all you who celebrate.  Let's appreciate and be thankful for the freedoms we have.  Let's show love to those in uniform who have continued to protect those freedoms. 

God bless America!  Land that I love.