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Every birthday I like to haul friends with me to some kind of active play. But February is always a crap weather month to even attempt an outdoor event. Such as my Saturday morning run with B this week, which was rained out.
Some years ago I had a birthday party at City Beach featuring basketball and indoor rock climbing. This year, P mentioned that they took my Oyster teammate TK for some male bonding via a bachelor party outing.
"We’re actually not doing go-karts, he reported that night, we’re playing dodgeball…trampoline dodgeball."
I flashed back instantly to windy Daly City playgrounds, running like maniacs on the blacktop and catching playground balls squarely in the chest with a satisfying "Boom!" before hurling right back at classmates. I made a mental note to self - gotta try that sometime.
Thus, today a bunch of us thirty-somethings stood in the crayola blue lobby of Sky High Santa Clara and prepared to regress to elementary school. We tittered as the teenager yelled rules out to us: "NO profanity, NO double-bouncing, No chewing gum, No cell phones or cameras…" I fueled up on Inteligentsia coffee. Friends shared Advil. P massaged my knotted neck. Good lord, could a bunch of overworked Silicon valley adults survive this place? Kids scampered around, and literally bounced off of trampoline covered walls. We pestered P jokingly for Dippin’ Dots. Put our big purses in the lockers. Several of our men had brought gym bags and changed into serious sweats…and the game was on.
My first impression: Dang. Takes a bit ‘o quad strength to bounce on these giant trampolines! This is much more of a work out than it seems!
Next: it takes only 2 minutes for us to regress to elementary school and start winding up balls and pelting them at people…and yes, we had no qualms about aiming at the children. After all, they had no reservations at all about throwing balls at our big ‘ol bodies. It as a total crack up to listen to the children organize themselves against us "that guy there throws really hard" ,"let’s all throw at the guy in the hat at the same time."
Within the next 2 hours, we all earned some serious sweat, and while taking breathers from flying, bouncing, dodging, I hooted and hollered at my compadres. As they tripped over little girls. Ganged up on opponents in hails of red and blue balls. Talked smack. Crowed with horrified glee as we took out 8 yr olds and they took us down too.
We realized we could perform near split jumps on the huge trampolines, feigning a level of cheerleading worthy fitness. I once found myself sole survivor on my side of the dodgeball game, throwing balls out in trios, hollering "what kind of game is this!?"
After an hour and a half, we were (if not for our size) I dare say indistinguishable from the munchkins. The teens were targeting us, and we were after them too. We’d share balls, handing them to little ones so they had a chance to throw, and not aim for their heads…but other body parts were fair game.
One loquacious blue eyed boy chatted us all up, helpfully informing us that birthday cake was being served. We explained that our cake would come after dinner, and inquired as to his friends’ cake. We got a report from a future foodie, "Well, she’s my sisters’ friend, it was a red velvet cake. AND it was decorated with a line of reese’s pieces down one side. AND it had like those red licorice trim, like the BIG ones, very chewy, I’m chewing one right now, AND I got a corner slice so I got extra candy…"
"So basically," I said, "you’re totally amped on sugar right now and ready to bounce off the walls in there?" His response was a wild eyed grin, and he cut ahead of us in line.
Our 5 year old niece avoided the total bedlam of the dodgeball court, but entertained herself spinning and bouncing in the foam pit room. And, lo and behold - her parents entered the game and endured ball assailment with great cheer.
2 hours later, we were breathless, sweaty messes with giant grins. A high point of my day was our friend V, whom we initially had to practically force into the pit exclaiming "That was fun!! What a great idea!"
We exchanged dodgeball stories from childhood, the same crazy, easy game-from all our hometowns. In Kentucky, Ohio, Orange county, Georgia, L.A….all the same prep for this nutty, bouncy, 8 balls flying simultaneously game.
One friends’ smiling, parting comment:
"We’re still young."
And off we headed to a lovely, fancy dining establishment for dinner-hungry as wolves and disheveled as all get out. What can be better?! We’re young enough to fly through the air and pummel strangers and friends, but old enough to own credit cards, wave wine bottles around at Sky High, and dine at Bleu Ginger.
Muchas Gracias, Amigos. Re-match, anytime.
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