I Hate To Play Catch

© Danijelm 
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We have neighbors – a father, a mother and a boy of about eight – who play catch. They play catch all the time.

Pull out of the driveway in the morning: oh, there they are, playing catch. Return in the afternoon or evening: oh, they’re playing catch. 7 am on a weekend morning, out there playing freaking catch.

My husband and kids say, “So, why does that irritate you?” I don’t know, but it does.

Maybe it’s jealousy. On the rare occasions when we have set out to play catch, my family is pretty pathetic at it. We underthrow. We overthrow. We miss a catch and end up chasing a rolling ball down the street. We squabble. We complain about the heat or the cold or how the sun’s in our eyes. We wander off. Hell, even our dog won’t fetch more than three or four times in a row before she’s like, “Enough of this shit.”

This family is very good at playing catch, never missing, just back and forth and back and forth, nice and easy, like a metronome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, playing catch is good for developing hand-eye coordination. And sit-ups are good for developing abdominals. Doesn’t mean it’s fun or that you’re going to see me out in the yard doing hour after hour of it.

Maybe I’m a terrible mother. My kids are never going to get in the 10,000 hours, or seven years,of practicing catch, so they won’t become exceptionally good at … oh, I don’t know, playing catch.

Hopefully, we’ll survive.