A Klutz Story

A post at the WTM site about klutz moments reminded me of this very embarrassing incident which happened to me in high school which I will now share with you since it has become somewhat funnier and maybe slightly less embarrassing in the ensuing 20+ years.

In my junior year of high school, I was the manager of the varsity boys' basketball team. It was a moderately geeky (okay, pretty darn geeky) thing to do, but I actually enjoyed it. I went to all the practices and all the games, even the away ones, and I got to ride the bus with the team. I kept the stats on all the players and learned a lot about the rules of basketball. I filled the little paper cups with water and put them in the big 3-dozen-cup tray so that the players could get a drink quick and easy when they came back to the bench after playing. It was a lot of fun. And naturally, I got to be around the very cute and very athletic basketball players, who were oh-so-much-cooler than the dopey football players. It was the closest I ever came in high school to athletic accomplishment.

Of course, you don't spend all that time around cute basketball boys without developing a crush on one or two of them. There was one named Eddie whom I worshipped from afar. He, of course, could not have told you that there WAS a manager for our team, what with his being all preoccupied with playing basketball and sucking face with his cheerleader senior girlfriend and all.

And yet one night I know I made my presence felt. Really felt.

It was a close game and we were some time in the second half - not down to the buzzer, but close enough that everyone was paying attention to each play. The score kept rocking back and forth in our favor and theirs. Eddie had played most of the game but was now sitting out, taking a break and resting in the certainty that he'd be back in the game in the last, crucial 3 minutes, which were not that far off now. I was sitting directly behind him, with my clipboard and pencil, faithfully recording every turnover, every foul. The game got more intense. Emotions were running high. Then, the ref blows his whistle on one of our guys. What? we all rage in disbelief. And naturally we leap to our feet, myself included.

What I didn't realize I was also doing was bringing the entire water tray, all 36 completely full cups, up with me, up and over the tops of the players chairs in front of me. All over Eddie and a couple of other players, drenching their jerseys, their shorts, their socks in their hightop sneakers. Filling their chairs with water, too.

Horror. Humiliation. Complete and utter inability to move or say anything. That's all I remember about the rest of the game.

At least it was a home game, so I didn't have to ride the bus back with everyone that night. And I was forever cured of my crush. Eddie was pretty nice about getting drenched. But after that he never even looked at me again.

All's well that ends well, though. Eventually I married a different guy from my high school. He wasn't a basketball player. He was a computer geek. Who now gives me lotsa love and kisses and presents and spends lotsa time with me and our kids and gives me backrubs when I've had a hard day. Call it Romy and Michelle's Revenge.