Soccer Debacle Part 2: My Retirement

This Blahg post is a continuation of previous drivel. There are throwback jokes in it that you may not get if you haven't read the first. So my advice is to floss. Your breath really smells. Then click here to read Soccer Debacle Part 1.

So a week later I walk onto the field to cheers from the huge crowd of admirers, those who have been waiting for hours just to catch a glimpse of my skills, and my sexy kid socks. Word of my talent has obviously spread. Women press their bare breasts against the glass and throw their thongs over the buffer as their bodies flail and their screams fill the arena. Some hold signs that read “Almost score again!” and “I like burritos!”

Wait a tic. Keeping it real. I walk onto the field, showing off my kid socks to the three people in the bleachers. They hold neither signs nor attention to our warm-ups. I’m wearing outdoor cleats that HotMom72 loaned me and I’m a bit concerned their 1/2-inch spikes may grip the turf too well, causing a rolled ankle or worse. But they seem fine as I run in circles, waving to my invisible fans.

The game begins. This time I’m sober, but looking back, I wish I would’ve smoked up. I work up a good sweat, make one good play, and try a turn without the consent of my body. My cleat catches in the plush turf and my right knee twists and belches a rapid string of pops. I cry out and fall to the field.

“Are you alright,” asks HotMom72.

“I don’t know, I heard a pop,” I say through discomfort. Memories of my ACL surgery of 2006 flood into my already panic-stricken mind.

I hobble to the bench and start pacing, testing my knee with weight. It doesn’t feel good, but I try another run on the field. I take one wrong turn and a sharp pain shoots me back to the bench where I take off my gear. I am not happy. “Don’t worry, man,” HotMom72 says. “I’ll smoke you up once we get back to my place.”  I nod, feeling a bit better, but my mind can’t stop thinking of the adventure my right knee took 5 years before. The fall while downhill skiing. The surgery. The depression. The four months of physical therapy. I push it out of my mind, bounce on my good leg to the front desk, snag a bag of ice and plop down to watch my team win the game.

“It was probably the best minute of soccer I’ve ever seen anyone play,” one teammate recalled.

“All I saw was a pasty-white blur of magnificence,” said another.

“Who the fuck are we talking about,” asked the ugly teammate. “Oh him? Wait, he played?”

The rest of the night is a bit hazy. Drinks. Pot. A Big Mac with fries and a strawberry shake at McDonald’s. Two hours later I remember my jacked knee and sadness seeps back in. “Hey, at least you forgot about it for a couple of hours,” says HotMom72. He’s right and a smile pops onto my face.

I hobble out to my car, double foot the drive home and see the red stain on my shirt. Ketchup from McDonald’s. I’m hungry but refuse the thought of eating more. I won’t be able to work off those calories as easily now.

In the morning the doc, let’s call him Richy McPantsFace, says it’s probably a sprain. “What’s the worse case scenario,” I ask, biting down on the wooden spoon I brought from home. “Worse case is your face gets even uglier. I know what you're thinking, that your face couldn't possibly get any worse, and I had to double check my findings as well. But it's true, your face—" "Doc!" I shout. "Oh yeah, I mean a torn ACL," he says. "But looking at your knee that’s pretty unlikely." Still, I take the news lying down after dizziness overwhelms me while imagining going under the knife again. “If the swelling doesn’t go down in a week, we’ll check it out again.”

Thanks Richy.

Well friends, it’s been two weeks since the soccer debacle and the swelling has gone down. My knee is not 100%. It can’t bend its full range so stairs are a bit difficult. I can run short distances, however, like from the door of the grocery store to the popsicles, as long as I don’t bend it too far.

I’ve established a memorial fund in honor of my short-lived soccer career. Please send cash, checks, or Wendy Peffercorn to the following address:

Dr. Awesome

69 Broken Dreams Way

Stupidstupidtown, CO 69696

Hahaha! Get it? 69? As in the sex move? Douche. Anyway, if you enjoyed this blahg post check under your pillow when you get home. I left you a present, hehe. Or “follow” my blahg by clicking above and pass it along to your friends so they can find joy in my pain. Sadists.

Soccer Debacle Part 1: My Debut

I’m hungry. I have a red stain on my shirt. I feel the pain in my knee and see it’s swollen. What the fuck happened tonight, I ask as I catch a blank stare from myself in the mirror. My downward gaze sees my green shorts. Soccer shorts! A mind bomb goes off as I suddenly remember that I was playing soccer earlier tonight. That’s when it happened.

Rewind to a few of weeks ago. It’s game 7 of the Stanley Cup. The Bruins of Boston are facing the Canucks of Vancouver. A friend of mine, let’s call him HotMom72, the same friend who helped coin the phrase “Tootsie Roll,” asks me if I want to come over to watch the game.

“I may have to leave early cuz I have intramural soccer at 9:15,” he says. “But you can come watch and we can hang out afterward.”

“What ever you say, Captain Asshole!” I should have said. Instead I went with something like, “Sure.”

We sit through the hockey game, me secretly hoping for a tie to push it into overtime so I won’t have to go watch soccer. I should have known then. I should have listened to my instincts, because if wouldn’t have gone to that game, I’d be able to walk normal right now.  Instead, the Canucks lose in 3 periods and we’re on our way. I reward myself by getting high. After all, I reason, I’m an American and an American team won the cup, so naturally, as a full-blooded, cry-when-the-national-anthem-is-sung-beautifully child of the red, white and blue, I turn to drugs to dull my boredom. Or, just because it makes me feel good.

As I’m about to revisit the car for my forgotten water bottle (a necessity when you’re high), HotMom72 yells at me.

“Hey man, wanna be our sub?”

“Are you fucking kidding me,” my brain screams. “I’m high as fuck right now! No, I can’t play in your Goddamn soccer game!” I stand there like a deer in headlights, contemplating how large of an explosion it would take to make everyone look the other way so I can escape undetected. I’m terrified, so I do what anyone on the “gateway drug” would do: I say yes. 

I run to the other side of the stadium and realize I’m higher than I thought. I’m bouncing on the concrete like Neil on the moon and the walls are vibrating with each stride.

Fuck. I’m actually doing this.

I haven’t played soccer in over 13 years, not since sophomore year of high school when I was so out of shape that I didn’t even finish tryouts. My self-doubt swallows me, which is part of the reason I want in. I want to redeem myself, another shot at doing something that I could’ve done years before. But right now all I can think of is looming disaster.

I circle around the field, which is basically a hockey rink with artificial turf instead of ice. There are two bench areas for the players, both with doors that latch, and between the two there’s a box for the score clock.

How do I get into my sudden team’s bench, I ask myself, frozen in fear. There’s an opening in the score clock box, but then I’ll have to walk onto the field. Hmmm. I’ll just stand here behind this nice net. And there I wait. “Why don’t you come around,” asks a female teammate of HotMom72. “They’ll let you through.”

Damn.

I creep around the corner, cautiously, to prevent complete and utter embarrassment. I tiptoe through the press box, as if landmines are buried beneath. The ref lets me onto the field and said teammate opens the door to “our” bench. And there I wait, wondering if I’ll actually sub in, or if they just needed an extra body to start the game so they pointed me out with no intentions of calling on my services.

I get my answer in the form of HotMom72 jogging to the bench and gasping for me to take his place.

Holy shit. This is it.

I run onto the field, frantic like an idiot. I put myself into a play, start to feel comfortable, but a whistle halts my imminent stardom. “You need shin guards,” says the white-haired ref. I look past my khaki cargo shorts to my sneakers and tube socks, and a sudden revelation dawns on me: I am a moron. Of course I need shin guards.

I guess when your high you forget these things, little things, like pretty much the only piece of equipment that you actually need to play soccer. A “minor” detail I failed to recall from the three years I played before the fat and lazy summer of ’98.

I feel dumb. All my worries of being laughed at have come true. Paranoid, I glance to the bleachers to make sure no one is filming this. I don’t want to become a YouTube sensation for the wrong reasons. I jog over to the bench and jump over the side instead of opening the door and stepping in like a civilized human being. Shit, I don’t need a fucking door, especially when I just want to duck behind the boards, which is where my dignity is surely hiding.

Well apparently another rule, besides the shitty “You must protect your shins to play,” is that you can’t jump over the boards to enter the bench area. You must unlatch the door, step in with an air of self-righteousness, all whilst sipping a cup of English Breakfast with your pinky in the air. The zebra locks onto my position and follows me to the bench. “Next time your team will get a yellow card.”

A part of me is incredibly relieved. No more blossoming into a muttonhead for all laughing eyes to see.

Half time brings HotMom72 and the rest of his team to the bench. He says he knew I was going to get kicked off the field. “But I needed a break.”

Asshole!

The other ref comes over during half time with a pity-driven smile. He tells me they probably have shin guards I can use in the lost and found. “If someone has socks, you’re set.” One of my new teammates does have a pair in her car. “But they’re kid socks, so they’ll probably be a little tight.”

They. Are. Incredibly. Tight. And take me what seems like forever to get on.

HotMom72 recalls it this way: I look over and he’s putting on a sock. I continue to play and about 5 minutes later I look over again. What the fuck? He’s still putting on the same sock. By the way, don’t my tits look great for a mother of three?

O.K. He didn’t say that last part, but whatever. Finally the socks are on and snuggly hug the borrowed shin guards. I step back into the bench and soon after I’m on the field, nervous, spazzing my way to almost scoring two goals.

After the game I get asked to join the team, obviously due to my on-the-field wonders, says my ego. But the side of me that keeps it real, bitches, reminds me that I just got done making a fool out of myself and it’s because they just need another body. I had a lot of fun, so another yes leaves my lips.

If only I would’ve said no.

Click here for part two of "Soccer Debacle."