free 2 be marlo

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Posted by Evil Schmoo @ 7:41 p.m. ET

I don't really have much to say this time, and I have even less time to say it, but it's been awhile, and I just randomly noticed this is my one-month anniversary, so:

Freedom feels pretty good. Like the short-lived BudLight commerc's said, "I'm doin' FINE, thanks for askin'!"

Though I'm not a ten-gallon-decked horse-nailing rube ... Hey!! No snickering!!!

Bastards.

See? Same old Schmoo.

The Schmoo achieved a goal this weekend -- no, I mean an actual literal goal in soccer, not that I physically accomplished a task I had set before me -- which he thinks brings his lifetime total, in organized games, to 6.

Lessee, there was the one I scored against Jon-Eric Jacimore -- who despite having one of the coolest names of all time, being an extremely cool guy, being my roommate for several days? Weeks? at a soccer camp when we were kids, serves no other purpose in The Schmoo's memory than being The Guy I Scored On, 'cause he's the only keeper I've ever scored on that I actually knew; there's the one I scored directly off a corner kick when it was blowing 40 mph and the other keeper was less than 5 feet tall; there's the one I somehow scored juking a defender literally out of his shoes and chipping over the keeper, which I've spent my entire playing career trying to redo, without success. Those all happened when I was 12 or younger. Then I scored one on the JV in high school, when I got put at forward with three minutes left in a preseason game, the entire team was told to pass to me, I ran like hell after one long ball which feel between two defenders and the keeper, and while they were all trying to figure out what to do with it, I poked it with my toe into the net ... and that's it.

Oh, wait, there was one for the team I now play for, which consisted of the ball sitting in a large pile of mud six inches from the goalline and me and the keeper trying to figure out who actually wanted to dive for it, and me deciding just a wee bit faster than he, which meant I scored and he face-planted, which our vaguely sadistic captain, The World's Most Irish Jew, ranks as Goal of the Year for 2004, entirely because "the other guy got real dirty-like".

So, seven.

Which, considering that I've been playing since I was six, is not damn bad. That's, what, one every ... beep boop boop beep, boop ... er, about one every four years. So there. The Schmoo's minor victories in life are all the more precious for their rarity and their obscurity. Sure, any dickhole can lease a luxury automobile, but The Schmoo was able to redirect a spheroid traveling about 15 m/s by about 75 degrees into a virtual vertical rectangle 8 feet tall by 24 feet wide past the outstretched arms of a somewhat spry 30-year-old male roughly 6'1" tall.

WITH MY HEAD.

So fuuuuuuuuuck YOU.

(Actually, I have not the foggiest idea what the angle of deflection was, nor have I the slightest clue as to the status of the goalkeeper's arms. I remember the ball coming on a collision course for my skull, and thinking, "Oh, this is how you're supposed to do this. Funny. Always seemed more compli-" and by then, the ball was in the goal and everyone was shouting for joy. Well, everyone that matters, which is to say, my team.)

The Schmoo remembers his previous six goals quite vividly, so he can state categorically that this is the first time in his life he has scored off a header. And it feels so delicious that he does not mind that he replays that scant half-second over and over in his head repeatedly, incessantly, to the point where it may soon drive him mad, much like "The Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt is used as symbol of Peter Lorre's madness in The Schmoo's Second Best Movie Ever Made.

The only thing that bothers him is, due to a childhood tragedy the adult culmination of which is that The Schmoo is a total pussy when it comes to Objets D' Thrown-at-Head, he HAD HIS EYES CLOSED THE ENTIRE TIME.

So he can't actually remember seeing what is, without a doubt, the greatest moment of his life to date.

Thus the reason for The Schmoo's uncharacteristic humility on the subject when feted by his exuberant teammates. Oh, The Schmoo does not retract his statements: the cross from Dave Who Is Called ThatGuy was absolutely brilliant, and we only celebrated the goal due to its game-tying nature thanks to a flatly peerless performance from our goalkeeper, Mike What Likes Whiskey ... but the fact is, The Schmoo was simply unable to share in his teammates ardor.

Now that, Alanis, is ...

no, actually, it's not ironic. It's just kinda funny.

So is nearly answering the door naked holding a replica Desert Eagle to the face of a would-be interlocuter who turned out to be a DHS Field Investigator performing security background check on a former resident of Bashford Manor because you thought it was your sorta hot but totally not-your-type neighbor and you wanted to prank her.

In other words, it's not nearly as funny nor as life-altering as it might have been. But both events were mildly humorous and privately memorable, and possibly indicative of some grander Schema, which The Schmoo leaves for the philosophers to extrapolate, while he hums himself pleasantly and quietly to sleep.

God Bless America.

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