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5:47 p.m. - 2005-05-09
This game takes balls

Croquet Anyone?

My Husband and his Mother are the butt of many jokes on my side of the family. It is not that we are cruel and seek a way to make fun of them or belittle them, it's just that in their trying to be serious, they are just too damned funny.

I have gone on and on in prior entries describing what a lump he is. He has limited interests, two freinds,and doesn't engage in social activities, not even visiting his extended family. He is in short, a loner of the most pathetic type. A guy that most people feel sorry for.

The poor guy has fantasys in his head though. He loves where we live, just 1/2 block down from a forest preserve and 10 miles of bike paths. When someone does come over, he thinks he is taking them on an awsome adventure if he persuades them to go for a walk down the path, with the promise of seeing a deer or a turtle.

He has fantasys that someday we will have freinds, and that they might actually come over. In his mind he will be the perfect party host. The problem is, this is all just day dreaming. When it comes right down to it, people irritate Mike.

Now and then when I do have people over, he sits quietly in a chair with a pained look on his face that is betraying the thought running through his head....

"I wish this were over and I wish you would all go home now."

One year, our condo association sponsored a condo wide garage sale. I ran our garage sale while Mike walked around and checked out the other 50 sales that were going on. That's when he bought his first two junk bikes.

He brought them home, having gotten a steal on them for 10.00 each and cleaned them up. He then parked them in the garage. He was so proud of himself for having scored such a deal that he started making cruising garage sales for junky bicycles a habit. He would get them almost free, spend a weekend fixing and cleaning them up and park them in the garage.

This would have been pretty nifty if he had turned this into a little side business/hobby and actually sold the bikes, but he just kept collecting them and keeping them. One year, unable to put anything else in the garage, I suggested that he sell a few of them. He gave away a couple, and sold another but there were still 3 extra bikes left.

I asked why he was keeping them as he could only ride one bike at a time.

He answered, "those are my guest bikes".

Another habit he got into was collecting balls. Foot balls, basket balls, soccer balls, colored balls the kids play with, base balls, soft balls, any ball that he could find on sale or find ownerless in the grass. He bought a large mesh bag to hold all the balls and hung the giant bag of balls in the garage.........They were for all the parties and picnics we have. One day we did have a picnic. He brought down the bag of balls and set them in the yard. They sat there until we cleaned up the party, never having come out of the mesh bag.

I think the bag of balls is still in the garage somewhere.

While discussing houses in Elgin, I mentioned that there was a real beauty in the Lord's Park neighborhood I love. I told him that it had a huge deck and a 2 car garage and that the yard was a steep hill. I mentioned that it might be kind of interesting to sit upon a deck and over look a steep hill which could be terraced and make a striking garden. I went on to say that from the glimpse I got of the back yard by driving on the street below and behind it, that it looked like it had a cute winding path leading down to Chicago street where there are shops and restaurants.

I looked over at him. He was shaking his head back and forth.

"No" he said, "there is no lawn for croquet."

I screwed my face up, wondering where in the hell he got the notion to play croquet and said, "croquet?, we don't play croquet."

"That's because you never had a lawn" he popped back.

I told my sister what he said. There was first a belly laugh and then that silent kind of laughter you only get when the belly laugh sucks all the air out of your lungs and you are laughing too hard to inhale.

I heard her struggle as she tried to speak through the laughter. Gasping for a breath she asked, "Is the the croquet set going to sit in your garage next to the guest bikes?"

P. I. Yarnsmith

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