Angry Elf

If you happen to note the date and time of my last blog, it was almost exactly a week ago, almost down to the hour. And once again, I find myself in the pit of despair (pause for hacking albino cough), or the library. Once again, I find myself completely incapable of writing the papers that I really need to write. Something about 6:00 on Friday nights is just not my thing. And there are kids rolling down the hill outside the library and I really want to join them.

I won't bore you with another post lamenting my choice of majors (though the last post did elicit some interesting responses from both my mother and a beloved aunt and their study habits- I think I follow after my aunt who allegedly stared at the wall, knowing she had to write a paper, but putting off the actual writing for as long as possible- I can sooo relate), but just know that I am standing by my retraction. I will, however, bore you with a story about an "angry elf" moment I had.

I don't get angry too often, but it happened to me TWICE this week. One was just like a small anger thing, more like an irritation that made me rehearse angry diatribes in my head (and maybe rant a little to my class buddies-who I might be ditching class with at some point to get breakfast instead... we are feeling a little rebellious) directed at a certain professor and his methods and his condescending tones. The other, the subject of this post, led me to actually excoriate someone-they probably didn't feel the sting of my words, but my eyes just backed the message up. OK, so I didn't actually excoriate them, no verbal lambasting did happen, but I wanted to a little bit....

It was a beautiful day, Thursday to be precise. The weather was perfect, Shamrock Shakes were on the horizon and we had a fun evening of roommate-bonding time planned. Roommate-bonding in the form of a flag football game, intramural style.

We showed up to the field and were blinded by the neon-ness of our opponent's jerseys. Once we had recovered our vision, we could see the QB had a play wristband. Amused? Yes. Intimidated? A little. Game on.

So, I think not-so-deep-down I am a fairly competitive person, though I have tried to suppress that particular tendency in the more recent years of my life. My competition these days usually comes in the form of tests or papers, and that works out well. This was my second game of the season and the first game I managed to maintain my dignity, but I also didn't quite manage to ignite the competitive flame, I was still just playing for pure "fun." Maybe that was just because we beat them the last game pretty solidly. This game changed all that.

We were getting owned. I was feeling the sting of a personal failure as I failed to block a touchdown pass, and I think we were all feeling the sting of our failure to get the necessary yardage and corresponding pointage.

We were feeling a little low when the neon's QB connected with a receiver who took off down the field. A receiver who didn't have flags. The NERVE! The insolence! The audacity! The unmitigated gall! (Name that movie!). So of course, my teammates who tried to grab her flags became confused as she DIDN'T have any. And just to clarify, they didn't fall off while she was running, she STARTED with them off. For reals. So she got through two teammates who both tried to grab for her non-existent flags and then made it to the end zone where she started celebrating obnoxiously. My teammates, of course, were trying to point out to the ref that she didn't have flags for us to pull, but the ref was a newbie and trying to insist that we were supposed to one-hand touch her.

This is maybe when I lost my temper a wee bit and I wish I had said something a little more biting, or witty or something, but alas... it's like in "You've Got Mail" when she talks about how she can never think of the right things to say in the moment... Anyway, I started talking back to the ref a little bit, pulled something like "How are we supposed to know that?! You can't tell us that AFTER it has already happened!" To which the ref responded, "You should have read the rulebook." SERIOUSLY?? Seriously! Another teammate slyly asked then if we could just "choose not to wear flags?" Then the other ref stepped in and called it, finally, and the girl was penalized for not wearing flags. But by this time we were losing, the blonde ref was on my bad side, and the QB was on an even worse side. (and PS- looked up the "rulebook" on the intramural website and you have to check out the "rulebook" from the intramural office- there is no way ANYBODY checks that out. They're havin a laugh.)

Winning seemed to be a little beyond our reach at this point, unless of course we were going to go all BYU basketball comeback on their behinds... But at the very least, I wanted the QB's flags. I wanted to take her down. I would settle for "accidentally" taking the ref too. Just kidding... From that point on, rushing was my domain. Cue Coach Yoast yelling," I don't want them to gain another yard! You blitz all night..." great speech, one of Yoast's best moments, in my opinion.

I am happy to say that they did not get another touchdown. And though I did not get the much-desired sack, I got pretty dang close -one time her flag was in my hand as she released the ball, I was just a tiny bit too slow- and I would like to think I put some good pressure on... but we still lost.

There were some positives to the situation, though. The first being that for the first time in months, maybe longer, I was actually a little fired up and the competitive juices were flowing and I actually CARED about winning, or not losing by even more as the case may be. (Think Grinch- and I care- what is the deal?!). The second- we got our Shamrock Shakes. We waited for those like ALL day. And though it pains me to admit it, they weren't quite as good as we had built them up to be. But the idea of Shamrock Shakes was still beautiful, even if the slightly toothpastey-mint taste wasn't.

All was not lost, even if the game was. But, I really did have fun and sometimes it is a little fun to get a lil' riled up over inconsequential things, let the inner monster out for a some play time...

I also might have accidentally-on-purpose tried to trip the ref. kind of. Not for real, but maybe kind of for real. Also, this is unrelated, but one girl on my team grabbed for a flag and grabbed the girl's pants instead and ripped them. So quality. I am so ready for my next game. I am not, however, ready for any of my papers.

PS- when we had the COOLEST Shakespeare class ever this week and if I ever stop hating my major again I might blog about it. But I just can't do it at the present time.