sky machines

My mom is an award-winning racquetball player. I'm not, but it's growing on me.

Racquetball was the fifth sport where I got myself hit in the face, and the first one that encouraged wearing protective eyewear, which made it an instant favorite. Things only got better when my mom's Recreational Racquetball League trophies impressed hipster boys I was dating.

When my mom was a child, her family was the first family in her town to get the video game Pong, which is what I assume led to her playing tennis in high school. In college she switched to racquetball, which was either the result of the cold climate which meant racket sports needed to be played indoors, or because she wondered what tennis would feel like on drugs. Fast forward to today and I'm playing a sport that has as much interest in physics as I do.

The logistics of the game are these: Hit the ball away from you, and then body slam into a cement wall to avoid being knocked out by the rebound. When the ball unexpectedly bounces right toward you, sprint over and body slam into the opposite wall. While this is going on, your mom is laughing at you without breaking a sweat.

Occasionally the racket I use to protect my face will miraculously deflect the ball in a way the earns me a point, and the echoing of the room and the blood in my ears make my moms exclamation of "We need to get you to Vegas!" sound more like "Wow, nice hit Brooke!"

I think the pure absurdity of racquetball is best summed up by its spelling of the word "racquet." I'd racq my brain for other words spelled with a cq next to each other, but I need to go lie down.



In this picture I'm the girl who's two heads shorter than everyone else and is wearing black plastic glasses. Believe it or not, I was not the star of the team.