Tennis Anyone?

Growing up in DC no one played sports after ninth or tenth grade. Social suicide. You were either rich and hung out at restaurants after school or you got a job. To be able to retire at 28 I opted for getting my ass a J-O-B. I was the front desk greeter at the sports club. I was excellent at scanning the membership card and telling the gym goers to have a nice work out. But tennis is one sport I wish I took competitively in high school. Its really fun and I'm decent at it. And by decent I mean I can beat Sue handily.

When people ask what's the top thing you don't like about New York, I immediately say the lack of public or even private tennis courts in the city. The expensive small apartments I can deal with, the mice and rats and the filth I can deal with, even the noise and the crowds I can handle, but the damn lack of tennis courts pisses me off. Whenever someone new moves to the city they always think they can find the one secret court nobody knows about. No dice. I have exhausted every option possible. Trust me, its easier to get into Greenhouse on a Wednesday night then finding a fucking public tennis court in this town. New York says they have public courts but you need a permit and its expensive, blah blah blah.

So I have made peace with the fact that I can't play tennis here. I'm fine with it. I just get my fix when I go home or down to Florida. Actually, both my racquets are already down in Delray and I joined my grandparents tennis league in their community. It's an over 70 league but they made an exception for me. They love the fact that I can run and collect the balls across all five courts in less than the two hours it takes them to fetch 'em all. It almost makes more sense to fly down to Florida and play there. "Hey, I'm Retired at 28!"