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I’ll Wear the Shirts, But I’m Not Gettin’ on the Field

Folks, I saw something last night that reminded me of an old Irish saying:

‘I like my women like I like my potatoes: mashed up and lumpy and mostly skinned.‘

No, I didn’t watch one of those ‘hooker killing spree’ Law and Order: SVU episodes. Which is, of course, every SVU episode, pretty much. Dead hookers or kidnapped kids; those are just about the only choices with that show.

At any rate, it was nothing nearly so murderous as all of that. Last night, I had a softball game — and when we got to the field, there was a rugby match going on. A womens’ rugby match. Womens’ college rugby, even. Now there’s a trifecta, people.

I’d nver seen womens’ rugby before — or any rugby, in person, actually. Just a few minutes here and there on ESPN, when they’ve run out of sports that I actually understand. So I didn’t have much context for all of the running around and grabbing and tackling the girls were doing last night.

Which made it spectacular! Now, if they could just make unis out of lingerie and Cool Whip, then we’d have ourselves a sport.

Nah, I’m kidding. I have much respect for the girls out there playing rugby — even the ones who aren’t hot. Honest. Those girls were tough. And a couple of them were paying for it. This one girl came off the field, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what century she was in. I saw her shuffling around and leaning on a friend on the sidelines for a few minutes, then lost track of her. Maybe she sat down, or went to have a lie down. Or hell, maybe she went back in the game. Just point her toward the other team, and yell ‘sic ’em!‘. Tough chica.

There were others, too. The stocky girl limping away from a scrum, with one sock pulled down and her jersey turned halfway around. The skinny dark-haired girl with sideburns — I would swear she was Ralph Macchio’s sister — who got tagged under the chin and kept playing. And the tiny little blonde girl with a deep blue shiner under her left eye; she played defense, chased down everybody, and I never saw her miss a tackle. A real trooper, she was. She’ll make someone a great wife someday. Or bodyguard. Or banshee. She was crazy.

But they’re out there, doing something I won’t do. I like to think that I’m fairly adventurous, but I am never playing rugby. It’s not that I’m afraid of getting hurt, exactly — hell, given my age and state of physical health, I could get hurt anywhere. I’m just waiting to break a hip getting out of bed, or dislocate a shoulder while I’m brushing my teeth.

It’s just that I’ve got this picky personal policy that I’m not going to engage in any activity that requires me to tape parts of my body down so they don’t get ripped off. Call me a pussy, if you like. I just value my appendages, that’s all. Some more than others, but they’re all very dear to me. Like my little fleshy children, they are.

So, there you go. My first girls’ rugby experience. I can’t tell you the final score. I can’t even tell you who won. Hell, if we weren’t at Harvard’s field, I couldn’t even tell you who was playing. But there was some heavy hitting out there, and those were some tough damned girls. And now… now, I’m suddenly hungry for potatoes. I’m off for a snack. Ciao, baby.