I was in Surprise, AZ at a tournament a few weeks back and I stayed with some very nice elderly folk who have traveled the world and had many great stories to tell. As I listened to them, I thought of a few stories of my own that I wanted to share. One is about a super-server, and the other is about a super-stalker.
Both Venus Williams and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy have the fastest clocked serves in women’s tennis. Brenda is originally from the Netherlands and her fastest serve is clocked at 130 mph in 2006 at a tournament in Cincinnati. My first story is about an experience I had while playing her.
I was at a Challenger (50K) event in Indian Harbour Beach, FL about 3 or 4 years back. I lost in the last round of qualifying to a lady from Portugal named Rossana de los Rios, who ended up in the finals of that tournament and becoming top 100 in the space of the next 2 years.
As luck would have it, I got lucky loser! (Lucky loser is when somebody who either lost in the last round of qualifying, or really anybody who is at the tournament, signs in to a list and when somebody in the main draw pulls out after qualifying has started, whoever is first on the list and signs in by a certain time on the day of play gets a spot in the draw.) Guess who I drew as a lucky loser in the main draw? Yes you guessed it, Mrs. Brenda Schultz-McCarthy.
I thought to myself, ‘OK, I’ve seen her play and she’s really just getting back into tennis after retiring-she has a wildcard into the tournament-if I can make her play her groundstrokes and get past her serve I’ve got a good shot.’ Easier said than done. In one game in particular, none of my returns felt right. I sat down on the change-over and tried to move on in my mind to the next game, and as I did so I looked down at my racquet.
My racquet had been sheared---not cracked, not broken, but SHEARED across at the point where the head starts and the neck ends. Brenda broke my racquet with her super serve! Can you believe it? I couldn’t, so I took a picture—you can see it to the right.
Now for the second story that I said was going to be about a “super-stalker.” This is an exaggeration, really, but it caught your attention and made you want to read, right?
I played a tournament about 4 years back my first January after finishing college and turning pro—this tournament was in Fort Walton Beach, FL which is right on the panhandle of Florida on the beach and kind of in the middle of nowhere. That year at the tournament they did not have regular transportation to and from the site, so one of the volunteers at the club recommended that her son give me and my roommate a ride back to the hotel.
Turns out he was regularly available to give rides that week, so he drove us back and forth quite often. He even took us to dinner one night which was very nice, since eating from the same hotel restaurant every night can get a bit boring. My roommate knew he was crushing on me, what can I say? That’s how it goes sometimes. I think he was about 34 years old---he was kind of an odd bird, very skinny and the rest of the details about him I have forgotten.
The end of the tournament rolled around and when I looked at flight prices, the closest and cheapest airport to fly out of was Mobile, Alabama. I asked at the tournament how I could potentially get to Mobile. Well, guess who offered to take me? I was a bit wary because I knew he had a crush, but I needed to get to the airport and he seemed normal enough, so I let the guy who was giving us rides that week take me.
It could not have started off on a weirder note. I got in the car and he turned on a CD, stating that he had made a CD for the ride which included all of the songs from that week on the radio that I had liked or sung along to. I had not made a big deal about any of the songs on the radio that I heard during that week—he must have paid REALLY close attention to me in order to be able to figure that out—and then the fact that he remembered which songs they were? I thought, “And this is only the beginning, you have 3 hours to go!”
However, to my surprise the ride itself was quite uneventful. He tried to make some deep conversation and I tried really hard not to share in it so that he wouldn’t think we were building a deep connection-this was not hard since his idea of deep conversation was a bunch of talk about premonitions, voodoo and magic. He even believed in telepathy, and of course thought of himself as someone able to tap into that stream of consciousness.
“As long as he doesn’t tell me that this ride was meant to happen and that it means something magical, and as long as I get to the airport safe he can believe in all the magic in the world!”
I breathed in a heavy sigh of relief (hidden from plain view of course) as we pulled up to the airport. I thought, “Please just let me go, please!” But no, I would not be allowed such a peaceful exit. We got out of the car and right as I thought I was free, he said, “Before you go, I have something for you.”
“Oh crap!!”
To my surprise and odd relief, he reached in his pocket and pulled out something—I couldn’t tell what it was at first and to be honest I was about to bolt for the door. Showing some true grit, I stayed there to let him reach out his hand and give me his present. He said as he reached out, “This is for you, for when you need a light in your life.” Then he, turning out to be a bit of a shy guy (who knew?) turned around and bolted.
As I stood there watching him peel off, I looked down in my hand and saw a keychain flashlight thing. At the moment, the thought didn’t cross my mind that he had been planning to give me a key-chain probably since he knew he would be giving me a ride to Mobile-- upon reflection, that makes the situation seem even more bizarre.
As it turns out, it was a super awesome keychain flashlight with a really bright light. It was flat, not in a normal flashlight shape, and had three modes. Off, regular light and then the real kicker! This bad boy had a strobe light setting—yes, a strobe light setting.
It was an interesting gift, and quite possibly the funniest part of this whole story is that I still carry that darn keychain in my purse to this day. The battery is still good, probably because I hardly use it and most of the time I forget that it’s even there. However, like he said, it is there for me in case I ever need a light. Or, as in my case, a party tool or silly music video special effect.
Each time I change my purse I make a conscious decision to keep that little keychain. The strobe light setting really is pretty awesome.
The moral of the first story is this: If you are playing against the woman with the fastest serve in the world and you can’t return her serve, it’s not your fault because your racquet’s probably broken. And if you lose the match it’s not your fault either because she will probably just break all of your other racquets one after the other.
The moral of the second story is this: If somebody has a crush on you and you do not share the sentiment, it doesn’t hurt to let them do nice things for you and for you to still be kind to them. Your kindness may mean more to them than you think. Even if they know their sentiment will never be shared by you they might still be able to give you something of value- like a strobe light keychain flashlight.
Story
No comments:
Post a Comment