“Oh, just open one of the damn things,” she snapped, slamming her first down on the nearest unfortunate fortune cookie.
Hers read, “The world will look a little better with some love given by you!” Which actually is a good reason for assuming it was her cookie. If the world depended on my love, it would be the ugliest planet ever.
Then I opened mine. It read, “Participation in sports may lead you to a lucrative career.”
“Aha,” I exclaimed, “they finally got one right.”
“Yeah,” she snickered, “I’ll just go ahead and confirm the delivery of our 62-foot yacht to the private island in the Caribbean we’re going to buy.”
“Scoff all you want,” I retorted, “but if the television networks think there’s money to be made broadcasting lame sports like pickleball and cornhole who’s to say they wouldn’t come up with a few million for 80-and-over basketball?”
“For one thing,” she pointed out, “basketball involves a lot of jumping. When’s the last time you jumped?”
“I can still jump.”
“With both feet leaving the ground at the same time?”
“Well, now you’re being picky.”
Despite what seems to be her fairly limited enthusiasm, I still haven’t abandoned my sports fantasies, such as the one where I’m a slam-dunking basketball star, even though the highest I ever soared was one time when I brushed the bottom of the net. I blame my parents for not creating me to be 7-foot-5. Maybe if they’d tried a little harder.
Other times I fantasize about being a pro football blazingly-fast wide receiver, leading the Cleveland Browns to half a dozen consecutive Super Bowls and having Taylor Swift annoying me with constant phone calls. My game plan involves catching the ball and immediately running out of bounds screaming, “Don’t hurt me, I’m a grandfather.”
But becoming a football star might involve tinkering with a few of the game’s rules, I realize, such as “no tackling anyone over the age of 40.” (Tom Brady and I would be unstoppable.) And, of course, no game could start after 4 p.m.
That’s when I take my nap.
Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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