Game, Set, Match, Ice Pack

At five years old, my parents bought me my first tennis racquet. It was a tiny-person-sized Prince with a soft caramely brown leather grip and bright yellow strings and from the minute I first shook hands with it (the way they teach you to do it when you learn to grip a racquet), it felt like an extension of my arm.

With tennis, as with most other things in my life (I learned to read when I was still in my twos and it was pretty much an even keel from then, on), I peaked early. My dad really thought he had a prodigy on his hands. She can read 500-page books, she can paint lines with her groundstrokes, she's a genius! If he'd only remembered I thought spiders lived in my panties, he might have stopped to think otherwise.

The first lesson my dad ever gave me aimed to focus on me getting a ball over the net. I did much better than that. In fact, I think I aced him by the end of it. This led to tennis consuming me for the remainder of my life as a minor.

I took private lessons from pros at every tennis club in the greater Philadelphia area. I played in after-school clinics. I played with my parents at the local high school. I got up early for Breakfast at Wimbledon and had posters of Andre Agassi plastering my bedroom walls. I lived through the teen heartache of the cutest player there ever was, Stefan Edberg, getting married.

And, not to toot my own horn (and I could actually toot if I wanted because I play french horn; ask my BFF [best friend forever] Kelli), but I was pretty good. Throughout middle school and high school I played on the team, and I always did well. I wasn't ever among the best of the best, but I was among the best of the pretty good.

But then I went to college. At a D-1 school. And we all know that the best of the pretty good don't get to play D-1. And we also all know that all you do in college is drink, smoke pot, and eat pizza. So I literally never played tennis again. OK, twice. In the past 10 years.

This past weekend my ol' tennis team buddy Kate and I decided to go back to our high school courts and try to relive our glory days by hitting around a little. Kate has managed to keep up with tennis, playing in college and then regularly thereafter, so I was a little nervous to play with her 'cause she's so good.

And how did it go? Is the suspense killing you? I sucked. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I said "good shot" more times than I got the ball over the net. What's worse is that by the end, my suckiness had even enveloped Kate. People six courts down started netting backands right and left, I was stinking the place up so bad.

Ten years had aged me 40 in tennis time. My reflexes are those of a 106-year-old woman with an afghan on her knees, rocking back and forth and talking to herself. I knew I always had that little old lady inside of me, but I didn't think she'd choose to make her debut on Court One on Saturday afternoon.

I woke up the morning after the tennis debacle unable to move my right arm, aching from trapezoid to hip flexor and back again. I had to pack myself in ice and sit still for 5 hours watching the OC on DVD until I was numb enough to hobble around.

And I work out, too! I swear. Apparently not enough. I was horrified. How did this happen!?!

So what have I decided to do about this display of pathetic-ness? Give up, you say? Heck no! I convinced Kate to play once a week with me and joined a tennis club, of course! And I am determined to, if not whip my ass into shape, at least meet a hot, unmarried, age-appropriate tennis-playing man who will notice the shape of my ass.

I figure either way I come out on top.

I could use some new balls, please: pilarrrgh@gmail.com