I HATE TO ADMIT THIS, especially in so public a forum, but I think others like me, if
there are any, could benefit from my honesty. For over ten years my wife beat me on a
regular basis.
I can’t say I shouldn’t have seen it coming. On our first date, she beat me badly. Like
many who find themselves in this situation, I said I wouldn’t let it happen again. And
then for the next ten years while I tried to stop her, I couldn’t. Finally, I received
professional help. The lesson I got giving me a two-handed backhand really helped a
lot.
You see, I met my wife on a tennis court. (Actually in the parking lot on the way to the
tennis court, but that kinda clutters up the story, don’t you think?) Not being a smart
woman — in some particular ways — she beat the tar out of me on the court that
morning. I didn’t win a single game. (I later realized she was going easy on me.) She
didn’t even appear to realize that no man worthy of the name, having been humiliated
like that by a woman on a first date, would even consider seeing her again.
We went on our second date that afternoon. (We went to one half of a high school
play, with my teenage son — for the record, which it must be — the lamest second date
in all of the history of dating.)
Sandra said soon after our first tennis match that she thought that I would be beating
her “in a year.” Wrong again. It was almost 10 years before I beat her in anything other
than a match that was obviously an unsustainable fluke.
I finally did catch up after a decade — but that only so far as to be able to compete with
her — not dominate her like any self-respecting man would want to do after 10 years of
ego-degrading humiliations.
I will admit she has had a good attitude about my closing the gap on her. Here’s the
way she puts it. If she wins, she wins. If I win, it means her doubles partner is getting
better. So, she says, she can’t lose. (My wife is the master of many things but she is
the queen of the rationalization.)
I just want to give fair public warning to my lovely and talented wife: Get the
rationalizer up and running because I am coming by you like Jimmy Johnson driving
the Lowe’s # 48 car. I am about to get my two-handed backhand back.
(You are probably wondering where it went. Answer: I lost it playing basketball. While
blocking a shot with my left hand, I injured my left shoulder. The worst part of this
injury — beyond even losing use of my left arm for my two-handed tennis backhand? I
put my hand on top of the ball as the man I was guarding went up to make a lay up,
and I got picked up off the floor, tearing my rotator cuff — and the sucker made the
shot anyway.)
Last time I got any tennis instruction, after one lesson, I learned a passable two-
handed backhand. Actually, it took less than one lesson. Fewer than 20 minutes into
the 45-minute session, my backhand was the best it had ever been.
So, with one highly instructive lesson from any one of the many fine instructors in the
McDonald Group at the Hollow Rock Racquet and Swim Club, you’ll be be stickin’ to
pickin’ on your banjo instead of pickin’ on my backhand, sweetie.
Square my body to the ball. Racquet back. Brush up the back of the ball. Up and
over. Whomp! And follow through. Here it comes, darling. Your day is finally done.
Gary D. Gaddy is good loser — too good, his wife sometimes thinks.
A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Thursday November
27, 2008.
Copyright 2008 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 