The Bucket Incident

i recently took golf lessons because HBSA sponsored a discounted rate at Tilden in the gorgeous hills of Berkeley. i suck at it, but i like golf. it forces you to relax when you are tense, but can still frustrate you when things don't go right. if you don't work at constantly, you lose it all.

hmm, that could be an analogy to something in life, but whatever. i'm too busy thinking about my swing to make some deep analogy.

golf has had a strange reputation--dorky and too-cool-for-school at the same time; old and young; exciting and boring. here is the dorky side--i will call this story The Bucket Incident:

at the driving range, there's a machine that dispenses the golf balls. it's very simple, see, all you do is stick your pre-paid card in and push the button to pick a small, medium, or large bucket, and the golf balls automatically spit out. so what's missing? oh yea, you have to put a basket under the spout. TOO BAD i pushed the button BEFORE placing a basket there. white golf balls start SPEWING out of there like there's no tomorrow and the balls start bouncing and rolling everywhere! i'm thinking, "ROUND?! why do golf balls need to be ROUND?!" i frantically and futilely try to catch some with my tiny, 12-year-0ld-sized hands before grabbing the basket and putting it under the spout. the basket successfully caught the last 2 balls. out of 60. awesome. so i start chasing down these round monsters that won't stop rolling everywhere. this old korean man starts helping me scoop some of the balls that rolled onto his mat. i keep saying, "i'm so sorry, thank you, i'm so sorry, thank you." he just says in that familiar accent, "it happens." i say awkwardly, "at least i didn't pick the large bucket! heh...heh...uh..." i take my approximately 60 balls and go to the very end of the driving range, far away from that evil machine.

what a noob.