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Why Imogene Coca? I Have No Idea

Hello, friends. Yes, this is another back-dated post, with the timestamp all doctored up to look like it was entered last night. Sneaky little bastard, I am.

So why was there no post last night, really? Well, it was playoff night in my Thursday volleyball league. Normally, the league runs from seven in the evening until ten. We play four matches and referee two others in that span; two hours playing out of three, so it’s a nice workout for hopelessly slow old fat guys like me. And for normal people, too, probably.

On playoff night, the schedule changes, though. It’s single-elimination, lose-and-you’re-out, don’t-screw-it-up-you-lousy-pinhead format. There are enough teams in the league to give the good teams a bye.

We didn’t get a bye.

If you win, you play one of the ‘bye’ teams, moving onward through the bracket toward the holy grail of free T-shirts for the winners. Not that any of us need more T-shirts, or that the crappy things are particularly nice. But it’s a goal to shoot for. Beefy tees or bust.

We didn’t get beefy tees.

Actually, we didn’t even get to play a ‘bye’ team. We went down. Hard. Like Courtney Love on a coke and roofies bender. And once it became obvious that we weren’t leaving the place with any more garments than we had when we arrived, that left only one goal: lose quickly. Because the first team to lose gets to leave — while being laughed and pointed at by all the other reindeer, of course. The walk of shame out the gym doors is no picnic, but it does have two advantages:

• 1) The second team to lose has to stay and ref one of the next games, and
• B) the sooner we leave, the sooner the drinking begins.

With that in mind, we put our heads down, rolled up our sleeves, and got down to a really good bit of losing. I was especially helpful; I played the entire second game of the match without a contact lens in my right eye, which made things rather interesting. There were many times when I saw a blurry roundish shape coming towards me that could have been a volleyball. Of course, it could’ve also been a rock. Or a large casaba melon. Or a kitchen trash bag, filled with month-old fruit and rancid cheese.

(Hey, I’m an amateur standup. People throw these things at me. I have to anticipate such things now.)

Of course, on one particularly unfortunate occasion, that lumpy roundish thing might have been the bald ugly head of our team’s setter. It’s a pity, too — that was my best spike of the night. I don’t think I’ve ever stuck a finger so deep into an earhole before.

The doctors say he’ll be fine. Eventually.

Anyway, we managed to suck the most fastest, and toddled off to drown our sorrows in cold Guinness and lukewarm nachos. I think we were at the bar and ordering before seven-thirty. That’s record time for futility, people. Four hamsters, a wet mattress, and a cardboard cutout of Imogene Coca couldn’t have lost that match any faster.

(See, because the mattress would play defense, and the Coca cutout would have to set, so the hamsters could spike and block and run all the plays, and…

You know, I may have given this just a teensy bit too much thought. Moving on.)

So, as every good — or not-so-good, in my case — athlete knows, the amount of time spent at the bar should be inversely proportional to the success you’ve had on the playing surface. So, I adjusted my contact lens — no need to accidentally pour beer all over myself — and settled in for some serious tippling.

That ended around one this morning, just as it should have — so you see, I really couldn’t have posted last night. Duty called, I’m afraid. And you don’t put duty on hold. Duty doesn’t appreciate that. You don’t want to make duty angry. You wouldn’t like duty when duty is angry.

Of course, I could’ve written something when I got home, and slipped the time back just an hour or two. Theoretically, that’s true. But I’ve found that it’s in my best interests, as a penis-carrying husband, to walk softly and make as little noise as possible when returning home from a local watering hole after the missus is tucked in for the night. Because if you think ‘duty’ is scary when it’s angry, then you’ve never stumbled into the bedroom at a quarter till two in the morning and said:

‘HEY HONEY! SO THERE WAS THIS CHICK AT THE BAR TONIGHT WITH A GLASS EYE. SERIOUSLY! NICE RACK, THOUGH. ANYWAY, SHE TOOK IT OUT, AND — oh. were you sleeping? sorry.‘

So, there you have it. That’s why this post is late. Don’t blame me; blame my lack of volleyball skills, my thirsty liver, and the precautions I take to avoid messy divorce proceedings. Or pretend the dog ate my homework. Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.