Yesterday we played out very first kickball game of the season. It was a humid 90 degrees and I haven't played a team sport since 10th grade gym class. I was really nervous that I was going to make a fool out of myself in front of my co-workers and complete strangers who also happen to be my teammates.

Now I remember why I don't hand around males very often. Why do men feel the need to get so dang competitive over everything? I mean, it's KICKBALL. Let me emphasize that one more time: KICKBALL. How on earth can you take kickball seriously? We are using the same ball we used while playing elementary school game of 4 square.

Here's what happened:
We all slowly trickled onto the field. Somebody took charge and created a roster of "batting" order and then asked us what positions we played. I offered to play 2nd base. (It's not really a super important base and besides, you have the shortstop to help you out.) We tossed the ball around to get a feel for it and then the game started. I took my position and was immediately hollared at by my teammates to move a bit to the left, now move forward, now move more to the left. Jeezus! Okay, okay, I moved.

All was going well. I didn't get a lot of second base action in the first few innings. When the ball came my way my male teammates would run in front of me to catch it for me. Way to promote teamwork, dudes! At one point a guy kicked the ball and it flew in the air heading straight for me. I was positioning myself under it, bracing for the impact...and the ball just went straight through my arms and fell to the ground. In the same inning one of my co-workers was in the outfield and similarly, a ball was headed right for her. She was yelling, I got it, I got it and then another outfielder pushed her out of the way to catch it. What a douche!

To make it worse, as we were heading back at the end of the inning, one of our opponents was passing us and he said in this smarmy voice: "Nice job, ladies." Wow. Way to: a) take kickball seriously and b) act like a prick jock who made gym class living hell for me. All of a sudden all the anxieties of gym class started to flood back. To make matters worse, my male teammates demoted me to oufield in the next inning.

If people aren't playing purely to have fun, then honestly, what's the point? If you are going to be competitive over a silly little kid game then I don't know if I want to be on that team anymore.

Let's hope I make a great play next time to redeem myself in the eyes of my loser teammates.