By The Way, My Left Arm Is Dead
I started my morning like every other one. I rolled out of bed at just past 7 a.m. and went straight to my laptop and read The New York Times. As I scrolled through stories about health-care reform and an update about the murder of a Yale graduate student, I couldn’t stop thinking about running around in the frigid morning air with a red LiquidMetal titanium and graphite racquet in my hand and hitting my favorite shot – a screaming forehand down the line.
Things may have been different if Sharapova showed up.
I’ve been finished with my undergraduate career for several months now and other than frantically sending my resume to every email address I can get my hands on, I’ve been playing tennis. Every day. My brother has been patient enough with my need to compete when doing anything, especially this often frustrating sport. And despite being at a lower level than I am, he tried his hardest to keep up. But as he grew more angry at his own playing ability, I knew I had to find others to play with. So, I decided to search on Craigslist.
Most people are familiar with the website. All I know about it is when I moved away from my college apartment, I posted ads about my unwanted furniture. People came and paid three times less for things that I bought brand new. You gotta love Craigslist.
So my second experience with it, I didn’t know exactly what to do. Am I trying to sell myself like an unwanted chair or a coffee table too big to carry for hundreds of miles? I go to the website and notice the “personals” tab: strictly platonic, women seek women, women seeking men, men seeking women and so fourth. But this tab is heavily associated with everything not platonic.
I didn’t get any responses for a tennis partner.
So I tried again on the “community” tab, posted an ad, and before I knew it two worthy opponents emailed me back. The first was a transplant from out of the country and wanted to get some exercise. His backhand needed some work, but he wasn’t bad. The second was ranked first on his varsity high school tennis team, which meant he was a bad ass. But he agreed to play again, so I can’t be that terrible.
So my first time meeting with prospect number three was filled without any worry or hesitation. I’ve gone 2-2, I thought. This guy might be a retired semi-professional, but at least I’ll learn.
The court is a maybe a little more than a mile from where I live. With two minutes to our planned meeting time, Chris calls me.
“Hey, man. I just got here,” he says. “Where are you?”
This guy meant business, and I started to get excited. I’m going to kick his ass, I thought to myself as NPR played in the car. He has no idea what’s coming for him.
I get to the courts, and he’s there sipping coffee with his right hand, and his are shaded with thick sunglasses. He stood next to his fixed up Honda, which was blaring techno. This was a little surprising being it was 8:30 in the morning.
Some small talk about tennis ensues, he usually plays with his “lady,” he says. And right as we enter the court he drops the bomb.
“I was recently in motorcycle accident and lost the use of my left arm,” he says. “I was racing on my bike and going 90 miles per hour. I was an idiot.”
Not knowing what else to do I say, “That’s terrible. You’re lucky to be alive.”
What I really wanted to say to this man, his left arm limp and hanging beside him, was that yes, he was an idiot. A selfish, cold-hearted fool who never deserved a driver’s license, let alone a crotch rocket.
Not only did he almost die, he almost got someone else killed. His “lady” who gripped for her life as Chris sped and weaved through traffic.
We start playing and I don’t know what the hell to do. His balls come at me so slowly that I could’ve finished The Odyssey before getting any part of my racquet to the ball. And I start thinking about the situation. This reckless a*****e deceived me. He read my ad, I played varsity tennis and was seeking a person with decent tennis experience.
And now I looked at this man who seemed lost at the baseline. Every time I didn’t have a ball to start play, I waited as he slipped his racquet underneath his arm and used his right hand to fish a ball out of his cargo shorts.
I felt the most ambivalence in my life. I posted an ad to play competitively, not council someone back into physical and mental health. I woke up early, granted I wake up early every day out of habit, and I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to the smack ball with all my might every time it took its slow route to me. But I couldn’t. This man has a handicap. I couldn’t even hit balls to his left. So now I was handicapped. After 15 minutes I decided to leave.
“I’m done,” I say.
I’m glad I left but I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. I’ve been trying this new thing called being nice lately and it’s done wonders for my own mental health. But there was a stronger urge to analyze this behavior, why would be make me believe he too wanted to play at a competitive level? Why did I feel an ambivalence of staying or going when I knew with the first shot he hit that he was obviously not in a condition to play.
I got in touch with a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine and he suggested that some of Chris’s behavior exhibited a pre-emptive strike behavior. People often build themselves down before taking tests or playing sports so that their imminent failure wouldn’t feel so bad. He used the example of someone drinking 15 shots before his bar exam.
“I didn’t fail,” one would say. “I was just too drunk.”
More interestingly, he pointed out the idea of self-evaluation. I quit because I play in order to determine where I stack up with other tennis players. In other words, my Craigslist adventures have become a measuring stick and not just a way to get exercise.
But this was the first time I felt the other person doing this to me. Chris’s need to mislead me was an evaluation on his own life’s normality. I only have on arm, but I still could play tennis. I’ll crush this spectacled d-bag.
But because I left so quickly, the one-armed man never finished his evaluation.
When I got home, I checked my email for any more Craigslist responses.
Comments? Leave your intelligent feedback down below or consider following CollegeTimes on Facebook or Twitter to stay updated or to get in touch!
Share This Story:
Please scroll down to leave a comment.
care, not I
no s**t, good call TJ Katning. What an a*****e…
Ok, so you’re a selfish pompous dick who thinks the world revolves around you and published it on the internet. Good job.