It Hurts!!! The Story Of How The Groundhog Almost Saw His Shadow

Sets 361-362:

Stuart v. M. at The Quarries. Winner: Stuart 7-6(3), 6-3.

My Mojo: OK Once I "Went."

The first set was ugly. I knew that before I started, I, um, needed to eliminate some of my earlier meals. But I tried to summon the demons before the match, and the love was just in the wrong place in my tubular bells to come out to party. So I had a feeling it would come to what it came to.

I'll spare you grisly details for the most part, except what is integral to the tale. Suffice it to say I've been on a huge fiber kick and have been gulping down at least fifty grams of all manners of sawdusty grit every day. And that's in addition to the huge amount of fruits and veggies (mostly raw) that I eat. It's all well and good, but when judgment day comes, it is immediate and swift, and there is no room for mercy.

And come it did. Around the second game of the match. I felt the sickening gurgle rear its ugly head and communicate to me unequivocally that the groundhog was trying to see its shadow. Actually, it was amazing that I hung on for the whole first set after that. I was in a huge amount of pain, which expanded exponentially as time went on. Try to imagine inserting an uninflated basketball where the sun will (hopefully) never shine, and then pumping it full of jello. That will give you a mental picture of exactly where I was right then (though that may be something you really don't want to picture). I just concentrated on blocking it out, and converted my close-to-rupture moment into intense focus on the tennis ball. I guess that gives Freud's whole trip a new meaning.

It definitely didn't help that there is no bathroom at these courts. I managed to stay with it enough to shimmy up a win in the first set (by a nose), and then I knew that drastic, immediate action was called for. I begged off to take a "bathroom" break. Of course, since there was no bathroom, I went off to an abandoned wooded patch, traipsing through poison ivy and beggar's lice, to eliminate my bad energy (matter converts into energy, right?).

Now, I thought that after I gave unholy birth to Satan's little brother I would immediately feel better. But my insides were still roiling. For the next three games or so, things felt like they were seriously "adjusting" to get back to normal. But after that, my man-womb calmed down, and I was able to concentrate on my play. I just tried to outlast the rallies, and break out for winners when I could, and make less errors than the other guy. And it worked, for the most part.