I Fooz, You Lose

I've never been much of a "gamer" of any type. I'm 6 ft tall and have the wingspan to match. People often ask me, "Did you play basketball in High School?" I say, "No, I played the saxophone." And they don't usually know what to say to that, but facts are facts.

I guess my family was much more bookish than athletic. In the nearly 11 years I've been married to Brent, I've had a very specific role in our athletic endeavors. I have 3 jobs: A) cheer him on, B)drive him to the emergency room when needed, C) fill in as a warm body when some of the women don't show up on his co-ed softball team. They've learned that I'm as coordinated as Frankenstien in a tutu. They don't expect much from me. "Just TRY not to strike out, Lori."

So with that background, let me just say, I work with a great group of guys. I've had that privilege (working with great people) at my last two jobs. On my current team, it's just me and 6 guys - developers, QA and graphic designers (I'm the Project Manager.) The team works hard, they put out great code and we deliver on time. It's a fun and productive environment.

In the software world, you reach points where you just have to step away from the computer for a moment. You can only stare at lines of code for so long before your mind goes numb. So there's a foozball table in our building. The boys will often take a Foosball break and they've become quite adept at the game.

I don't normally play. It is only a 4 person game for one thing. They play more competitively than I care to for another thing. It's just kind of evolved that Foosball is what the boys do.

Well, last week, during the holidays, we had some people out. They were a man short. They asked me to step in for Foosball a few times. I've only played this game MAYBE 4 times in my entire life. But I'll make the attempt. I'll "try not to strike out". I'm certainly not the Marylou Retton of Foosball. But I'll take one for the team or whatever.

So we were playing and I was doing what I could, which apparently wasn't much. My friend, J and I were on the first team together. I blocked some shots and I didn't block some others that would have been good to stop. He missed some too. That's how these things work. We ended our first round and so we rotated one position at the table. My dear friend, J, lets out this little Freudian gem, "Oh, good.... now A has the handicap on his team." HELLO! I'm standing right here!!

You cut me, J.... you cut me deep. I probably should have shown him what my 6 ft wingspan can do across a tiny little foosball table... :)