Rouse and Respond

September 30, 2010

I didn't clue in that tomorrow was an "Odd Friday" until it was too late to schedule a workshop. Let's defer it a week and make October 8th a "Really Odd Friday (Since It Is Really Even)".

Perhaps I can rouse your interest with this photo:


We had a funny discussion at the Chet store yesterday. One of the young interns (when I say young, I mean younger than me. Actually, I mean A LOT younger than me.) walked in complaining about his father. He said something like, ". . .and why would I listen to someone who always tucks his shirts in his pants, even when he's wearing a t-shirt?" This prompted a lot of head nodding and body language that screamed agreement from the other youngsters. I, on the other hand, slumped behind my desk and pulled my jacket closed around my middle to hide that I counted myself among the shirt-tucking scum they were criticizing.

I made several attempts to defend shirt-tucking:

• It's easier for the ref to see someone tugging on your jersey and holding you back illegally if your shirt starts tucked in, instead of flapping in billows at your side.

• It's easier to make a fashion faux-pas if you leave it out:

• It's a generational thing. If you are over a certain age and you don't tuck your shirt in, your friends will assume senility or dementia. (Note to friends of this age: do you have flashbacks of coaches making you do horrible things if your t-shirts weren't tucked into your gym shorts AT ALL TIMES?)

I left out the obvious disadvantages to the shirt tuck (makes it difficult to conceal the "heat" you are carrying; may be inadvisable in certain weight classes). I also left out the very important advantage, illustrated by my first photo above.

This is my friend, Ian.

He prefers the shirt-tucked-in look because otherwise you could not view his ever-so-special rattleskin belt. Not only did Davis get a pie for my birthday, but Jimmie Homburg gave Ian this belt for my birthday. He has wanted one for months!

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On a different wave length, Karen asked:

Did the foosball table come with the apartment or did you actually have that shipped??

Davis had a foosball table here in Bryan before he left for Ohio (thanks Tracy!), but he didn't take it with him. Within a few days of arriving in Columbus, he started bidding on an E-Bay foosball table in Dayton. He assumed if he won, he would have to find someone with a truck to help him pick it up.

Well, he won the bid, and bought a very solid, high-end foosball table. I got the news in an excited phone call on a Wednesday evening. He told me he needed to make a new friend who drove a truck before Saturday.

If he were in Texas this would have been easy-peasy. I see fifty or sixty of them in my (faculty) parking lot every morning. You can spot even more in the student lots.

Not so much in Columbus.

On that Saturday, he drove his Honda to Dayton, hoping he could remove the table's legs and possibly fit all the pieces into his sedan (remember how much he fit in just a few weeks ago?). The table owner (and apparently pickup owner, as well) somehow took pity on him, and loaded and carried the foosball table to Columbus for him.

It made him almost as happy as pie.