A staple of sports literature is the tale of the professional athlete who’s coming to the end of his or her career. Sometimes it's a heart warming story, sometimes sad.
But, this is about us, an aging group of tennis players (read hackers) whose sole claim to fame is that we've been playing together for more years than we can remember. That's if we can remember anything, which is why I'm telling this story.
One of our colleagues is our de facto “captain,” meaning he arranges our playing dates, times, locations and makes sure there are four of us available to participate. He also tells us who is playing with whom when we take the court. We never dispute his choices.
At the end of each session, we discuss our next playing date. During the week, our captain will email us to confirm the details. Sometimes he will project a week or two in advance to see who's available on what dates.
This week he sent an email that he was pleased to advise us he reserved a 10 a.m. court for Friday, Oct. 21, (today) at an indoor facility we normally use during the cold months. We all liked that because we could sleep a little later. We usually play at 8 or 9 a.m.
So we gathered at the facility to pay for our court time and the attendant, who knows us from previous years, says: “What are you doing here today? You booked the court for Saturday.”
Much embarrassment ensued. But we took it in stride and booked a court for next Friday at a convenient time for all. Then, since we still wanted to play, we drove to nearby outdoor courts and had a spirited set of tennis. By spirited I mean my partner and I made a few less mistakes than our opponents.
We won in a tiebreaker, 7-5.
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