Windows That Hated Me.

When I was a kid, my friend Ryan and I were incredibly adept at using our imaginations to stay in trouble. We would hold G.I. Joe burnings at the stake. We discovered that if you light a ping-pong ball on fire it will vanish into dust instantaneously and match box cars will indeed burn like a roman candle. Tennis balls filled with "strike anywhere" match heads blow up like little hand grenades. We also discovered a whole slew of ways to break things that didn't involve fire or home made explosives, such as rolling a bowling ball down a hill into a street curb turning the ball and the curb into a pile of debris (Amazing amount of destruction. You'd really have to try it to believe it). Sometimes we did not even have to use our imaginations, things would just get broken through no malice aforethought. There were times that we ourselves would get broken. We were two walking rogue demolition balls that had parents with nervous conditions.

When Ryan and I were not busy being in trouble or endeavoring to get into trouble we would combat the tedium with sports or some kind of game that we made up. Baseball was a favorite. I recall a particular instance when we were playing catch in his back yard. Ryan's house had a four foot chain link fence in back, and behind the fence was an ally. Beyond the ally was a church. We were taking turns practicing our curve balls with one of us squatted down like a catcher on the ally side of the yard and the other throwing away. We had picked this arrangement because the non-ally side of the yard was just slightly higher than the other which was fundamental to having a makeshift pitchers mound.

It's the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded, the score's 5-4 in favor of the home team, and it's a full count. Ryan glances toward first, he shakes off the first signal, shakes off the second signal, he nods and prepares for the pitch. Here's the wind up...here's the pitch! STEEEERRRRIIIIIKE!!! Well, it would have been if we had actually had a batter and that batter happened to be twelve feet tall or wearing stilts. I jumped up outstretched toward the ball and it just glazed the top of my glove sailing over the fence, over the ally and into the dead center of one of the church windows. The ball dropped to the ally and the window still stood there impervious to the insult. The pitcher, now rattled but safe from the wrath of his mother, called for relief and we switched places.

The batter having fouled the last pitch, stands in the box nervous and determined. There's a fresh arm on the mound and Covey's fastball is legendary. The pitcher winds up...here's the throw!! Low and in the dirt, the ball bounces under the glove of the catcher, off the top of his head, over the fence; it rolls across the ally, hops over a pebble and gently taps the bottom corner of the church window before dropping to the floor of the Sunday school room.

"Haaa ha ha haaaa!" Ryan's sympathy for me and my impending doom at parental hands was of no comfort, "You look like Calvin [of Calvin and Hobbes] with a little cloud of skulls and lightning bolts over your head!"

A little over a week later when I was able to sit again, and he was allowed to do so, Ryan came over to my house. Being freshly sprung from the clink, we both agreed that it was better to stay out of trouble for the time being and pass the time with a sport other than baseball. Baseball had left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths and a sore spot on our behinds. Field hockey seemed like a good idea. Nothing like smacking a hard ball around the yard with sticks. Besides, we thought, what could go wrong with that?

We took turns standing in front of the garage door defending the goal. After and hour or so of seconds on the clock to winning "the cup", the puck was once again on Ryan's ice and he was poised to deflect my brutal slap shot.

Covey skates past the defenders, he has a clear path to the goal! He draws back and fires! The goalie ducks! He actually ducks the puck!! GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!! The buzzer sounds and the clinking of tools dropping off of the back wall of the garage interrupts the celebration. Why would tools be falling off the wall? I looked at the garage door and my eyes focussed on the perfect field hockey ball sized hole in the garage window.

"Oooooh, boy" Ryan knew my parents were not going to be thrilled.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU BLOCK THE PUCK!!" My freedom and my physical comfort were slipping away before my eyes.

"Because it was coming at my face at like a hundred miles an hour! That's why!"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU BLOCK THE PUCK!!" I argued.

The next week Ryan and I were pretty much restricted to sports like checkers and piddly winks. Did you know the little plastic disks that you play piddly winks with can be fused together with a match and WD-40? Be sure to wear leather gloves if you try it though.