FRESH YARN presents:

Kick Me When I'm Down
By Rob Bloom

I'm being forced to play kickball. That's right, forced. As in "have to," as in "no way around it," as in "my job depends on it." Let me explain. My office is having a team-building activity (their motto: "You WILL have fun!") and, in this case, team-building means a game of kickball (my motto: "I haven't felt this nauseous since middle school P.E. class.").

Here's the problem: I am not an athlete. I don't shoot hoops, or sink putts, or run around a football field trying to grab a yellow flag from someone's Umbros. I just don't do these things. I also don't ask people to "play a little one-on-one," or "shoot some 8-ball," and I've never, ever, uttered a sentence that contained the word "pigskin." Hell, I don't even watch sports on TV, unless of course, you count professional wrestling as a sport, which sadly, most people do not, choosing instead to think of it as a gigantic pimple on the butt of the TV screen, not unlike late night infomercials, and the dancing old man in those Six Flags commercials.

Bottom line: I'm just not a sports person. What's more, there's not a whole lot I can do to change that. You see, Sportsessence (a term derived from the Latin phrase Ix-nay on Sitting on your ass-nay and watching TV-nay) is actually a hereditable trait, much like handedness, tongue curling, and the ability to see a 3-D image in those posters of multi-colored, mish-mashed waviness. There are, however, plenty of people out there who have managed to inherit Sportsessence. These are the folks who go running at 5 AM on a Saturday, and do things like participate in intramural sports for no reason other than -- get ready for this one -- they enjoy it! These are also the people who use that ridiculous piece of exercise equipment at the gym. You know the one I'm talking about. It's where you sit down on the little seat, place your outer thighs squarely against the cushy pads and then spread your legs obscenely far apart, thereby feeling, not only "the burn," but also quite the draft. These are the people who, as teeny, tiny cells in their mothers' stomachs, camped outside the Gene Dispensing Factory (at 5 AM on a Saturday probably) to ensure they received the coveted Sportsessence gene.

I missed out on getting that gene. Probably because I was in the next building over, the Klutz Cafe, watching sitcoms and eating a pastrami sandwich. But Rob, you say, surely you learned some athletic skill after all those years of playing catch with your father! Ha ha! While my dad and I have certainly had our share of beautiful bonding moments ("And that, Son, is how you make an Egg Cream!"), "playing catch" was not one of them. Not that I blame him in any way. No -- the complete lack of any and all athletic ability whatsoever among members of the Bloom family dates all the way back to 1896 when Stavros J. Bloom attempted to compete in the first Olympic games. Taken from Bloom family records, here is the actual transcript of a conversation held between Stavros and his track coach on April 1896:

"Please-a pick-a me for the team-a, Coach!" Stavros said.

The coach shook his head and snickered. "Your shoes are on backwards."

So Stavros wasn't chosen for the team, which truthfully, was probably for the best. Between his clubbed foot, frequent dizzy spells, and rare allergy to oxygen, Stavros had no business being outdoors, let alone in a sporting event. This would prove to be consistently true for future generations of Blooms as well. Blooms and Sports just don't mix. Especially during adolescence when you're short, uncoordinated, and wear glasses with three-inch-thick lenses. Welcome to my P.E. class at Rock Lake Middle School in Longwood, Florida.

I was always picked last for teams. Always. It didn't matter what sport we were playing, either -- I was last. The teacher would pick two team captains, guys with names like Travis or Conner or Austin or Colin; guys who were a foot taller than I, with biceps bigger than my thighs. What's more, these boys had very cleverly made a deal with God (a huuuuuuge sports fan) because they'd already started going through puberty, meaning they had hair in places that I didn't even have yet! For these guys, P.E. class was the reason they went to school every day, whereas I greeted each class with slightly less enthusiasm than I did a dental cleaning.

So the entire P.E. class would stand in a big group and the captains would pick different students to join their respective teams. Brown. Turner. Palmer. The chosen boys would jog over to their fellow teammates where they'd begin high-fiving and slapping each other on the back. Young. Morris. Harris. One by one, my fellow classmates would get chosen. Stewart. Miller. Anderson. More names would get called while I stood there, uncalled, watching as the crowd around me got smaller.

"Okay, let's play!" TravisConnerAustinColin would say.

"Hold up," the teacher would reply with a snicker. "Nobody picked Robbie Bloom."

Now while this sort of embarrassing event would actually happen MANY times over the years, there is one incident in particular that stands out in my mind. In fact, this particular P.E. class was so awful that it solidly ranks as #2 on my "Horrifyingly Embarrassing, Wishing I Was Anyplace Else In the World, This Can't Really Be Happening" Scale, coming in just a notch below #1: Performing the Tango in My College Ballroom Dancing Class with Mauricio, Who Was Not Only a Hairy-Chested Colombian Man with a Village People Moustache, but also the FRIGGIN' TEACHER!

I was standing alone in the middle of the baseball field, while my classmates stared at me like I had some dreaded disease. And then the debate started.

"C'mon, coach! I had Bloom last time!"

"Well I don't want him! We won't stand a chance!"

"Please don't give me Bloom! He's useless out there!"

The debate lasted nearly two more minutes before the teacher mercifully assigned me to a team, a decision that was met with mixed reactions ("Ha ha! You got stuck with Bloom!" or "Crap! We might as well not even play now!").

Thankfully, I was placed in the outfield. This was perfectly fine by me because it meant I could stand all by myself, very, very, very far from the action. Seriously, my classmates were playing baseball and I was a good zip code away. Now you'd think this would've been a comfortable enough distance to prevent me from suffering any additional humiliation, right? C'mon, that would've been a direct violation of the Klutz Code, which clearly states:

And that's exactly what happened. You see, in addition to being a big sports fan, God also has a tremendous sense of humor, which explains why, despite the fact that I was so deep into the outfield that I couldn't even see the actual field without squinting, the ball went sailing through the air (in dramatic slow motion, with the Jaws theme playing) and came directly to me!

Good one, God.

So the ball came right to me and, of course, I didn't catch it. I didn't even come close. Instead, the ball landed on the ground and I went chasing after it, listening to the respective cheers and groans from the two teams, until I finally got to the ball and heaved it with all my might, sending it sailing triumphantly through the air… about ten feet before it dropped to the ground.

I ran to the ball and threw it again. It went another ten feet. So I chased it again. And threw again. Only this time I watched in despair as the ball, which now weighed 45 pounds, traveled a measly five feet. Several minutes and nearly a dozen throws later, the ball landed in the vicinity (read: a good quarter mile) of one of my teammates, who quickly scooped it up and threw it effortlessly to home plate -- while still finding time to yell out, "Thanks for nothing, Bloom!"

Unfortunately, this type of thing was common as I grew up. However, as I got older, I realized that my lack of Sportsessence was actually OK. I mean, so what if I couldn't catch a stupid baseball? Who cares if every time I went to bat, the other team chanted "Easy out! Easy out!" while the pitcher instructed his teammates to, "Come in closer, guys!"? And does it really matter that one time in high school P.E. class, when teams were chosen for a soccer game, I was picked last -- behind Sam Tiffs, the kid with one leg? HELL NO!

Sure, I'll agree that being good at sports does provide some advantages in life ("And so we made the deal right there on the golf course! 30 million, just like that!"), but c'mon, there are plenty of areas of life where athleticism is not a prerequisite for success.

Yep, I can be perfectly satisfied with my life as I sit here, reflecting about the TravisConnerAustinColins of my past, feeling my blood pressure rise to triple digits as my mind broadcasts flashbacks of my traumatic lifelong battle of desperate attempts to fit in with the athletic crowd. See, what did I tell you?!? Perfectly satisfied!

Besides, that stuff is ancient history and, really, it's pretty damn trivial. Truth is, it doesn't matter that I'm unbelievably terrible at sports. And after a lifetime of obsessing over, and reliving those moments from my childhood, I'm finally ready to let go of the Past and start focusing on the Present. Like this stupid office kickball game. And how I'm going to get out of it.

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