This past weekend, I went to two days of Davis Cup matches held here in Birmingham. I'm not necessarily the biggest tennis fan, but I like to experience new things, and I thought I shouldn't pass up the chance to watch some professional tennis played live. And I may or may not have wanted to see Andy Roddick, but let's not rate my motivations here.
Watching so much tennis reminded me of one of my rather odd childhood dreams: to be a ball girl.
For some reason or other, I really wanted to be one of the people that runs out on the court to grab stray tennis balls.
I imagine that a large part of my motivation was the outfit. Like most activities, including ice skating and tap dance, I was mainly in it for the clothes. As a girl who refused to wear pants as a child ("because ladies didn't do that") and often sported a tiara to school (like that one should really come as a surprise), I would do a lot for sequins or cute skirts. It must have been the skirt because as much as I remember loving tennis skirts, I also remember loathing the one tennis lesson my mom made me take.
I'm guessing the other motivation might have been that ball girl seemed like a pretty fool-proof way to participate in sports. I closed my eyes when the ball came towards me in batting practice, and it took a lot of Barbies for me to make the move from the kiddie pool to actual swimming, so I did a lot more bench-sitting than playing when it came to sports.
Another activity I joined for the outfit, cheer leading, even ended in humiliating defeat when I was on a squad that earned the "most improved" award at cheer leading camp. (Next to being at mascot camp -- sorry mascots -- winning the pity award at Southern cheer leading camp is no more prestigious than my time spent on the Math team.)
Although, as an adult, I can now see that being a ball girl would have been just as terrible as playing actual sports for me. Imagining myself in the role of ball girl at the Davis Cup, I envisioned a lot of tennis balls bouncing off my body and farther down the court, poor rolls that interrupted play and many, many dropped towels. (Never throw keys in my direction. Just trust me on that one.)
Plus, with matches that last at least two hours long, I would have been strolling towards the ball rather than running after it within a half hour. And that crouching position? Not with these knees.
In short, ball girls (and boys) of the world, I salute you. I'm pretty sure that blogging about watching a tennis event is as close as I'll get to the actual court ever again.
