Monday, November 07, 2005

Small Game Hunting

They look like tennis rackets only slightly smaller and they weigh less. They look so much like sporting equipment that I decided to make a game out of their intended purpose. It is a sport played all over this part of the world, there is just no official name for it. I have heard it referred to as “mosquito tennis” & “swat ball”, but I prefer to call it “Small Game Hunting”.
The sport has taken shape over the last few months in to what I now find a quite satisfying pastime. The arena is the stairwell outside our apartment and there are no standard “periods” or “innings” if you will, The duration of the “inning” is as long as it takes me to have a smoke.
You see Karen, whom as a non-smoker, demands I smoke out in the hallway as to not pollute our home and her lungs with my disgusting exhaust. This annoyed me at first, due to the sheer number of mosquito’s attacking with the gusto of demented Japanese Kamikaze pilots. I have since accepted it as part of my new life here in Taiwan.
Picture it, if you can. Round One: I am standing in the hallway wearing a pair of slippers, a cigarette dangling from my lips and my racket in hand. The inning begins immediately after touching flame to tip. I get in to my stance, legs about a foot and a half apart, knees slightly bent, scanning the air above my head for the winged nuisance that has so plagued my existence these last few months. Bzzzzz. The first one dive bombs my ear and the dance begins. I begin swinging the electric mosquito zapper about my head and shoulders like a mentally handicapped maestro, conducting Hells Choir. The inning is officially over when the cigarette hits the flour. My highest count in one inning, is eight dead skeeters, but the sport is young and there is always tonight. I may just beat my record. So until next time, keep swinging at those skeeters!
Ed.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so...this is what yer life has become.... let us not forget the official roots of this wonderful pass time...you may remember an evening of junebugs on the deck of an undisclosed cottage on parly beach? ring any bells?...

joe

Anonymous said...

PLEASE STOP SENDING E-MAIL TO edwardo55@hotmail.com