Day 128. Love, 15?

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I have one weird, irrational phobia.

I am entirely weirded out by the idea, or reality of anything with a fuzzy texture having contact with my mouth. This goes for Kleenex, paper towels, and tennis balls, etc. I actually cringe as I write this, just thinking about it, especially tennis balls.

I encountered tennis balls a lot growing up, they were all over the house. My dad, was, and is, a college tennis coach, so I’ve always been around them. I don’t know what the circumstances were for them to have touched my mouth. Maybe, it was just one bad experience. I know that I couldn’t escape them, though. We all played tennis growing up and into college.

These days, I don’t play very often, although, every time I do I want to play more. On Tuesday, I saw an ad for a job opening at a tennis club in Beverly Hills for a front desk clerk, so I applied. Today, I got a call saying that I’ve got an interview for Thursday. Oh yeah. I have two interviews back to back, the tennis club and the Apple Store.

Now, let me make clear, just because I grew up around tennis, as a coach’s son in Iowa, does not mean I know the first thing about what to expect at a tennis club in Beverly Hills. I think you can become really involved in tennis in two ways. One, grow up with your dad as a coach so you can get free balls and play on public courts near your house. Two, you can be really rich and play at country clubs. I am not in the latter’s world…yet.

The woman asked me if I knew how to string racquets. Stringing racquets involves a specialized machine thing, it’s a pretty particular skill. We had a racquet stringing machine for awhile when I was in high school. I learned how to string a racquet and did it a total of two times. I then put that skill in the pile of other high school skills I wouldn’t ever use again like, how to use iambic pentameter, knowing what a protractor does, and farting into Nalgene bottles. I let my brother, Jon, take the stringing responsibilities.

When she asked me about stringing, I said, ” Oh geez, I did know how to, like fifteen years ago.” Then I remembered to be better at BS, so I said, “Yep. I know how to.”

Before my interview Thursday, I will shop for a sweater to drape around my neck, because that’s what they do at Beverly Hills tennis clubs, right? Right?

Like a toddler in a new environment, I will just have to be reminded around all those tennis balls, not to put everything in my mouth. If I do, I will freak out.

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