So “Jeff” has been putting up with the major flaws in my tennis personality, namely a bizarre coordination deficit, and fear. What is there to be afraid of in tennis you may wonder? to answer that You have to know 2 things about me.

1) I put everything I own in my bra. Money, phone, medicine, band-aids, business cards, gum, the occasional granola bar ( which I know is gross, but they actually taste better a little warmed up) There’s a funny high school moment when I put a plastic troll doll in my bra and forgot about it, only to discover it during a math quiz, when I thought I grew a chest load of troll hair. I screamed , plucked him up by his troll hair and then was like” oh its just a troll doll”, so I put him back. You could accuse me of really being flat chested and using my bra as a strap on purse…not a bad idea really.

2) Last October I sat in a pile of fire ants and had an “episode” This involved an ambulance, but more unfortunately, it involved me stripping my clothes off in my neighbors garage and drooling, crying and saying goodbye  to her and her husband who were both kinda trying to cover me up with a drape… I saw my life flash before my eyes. I think I lost consciousness, My lips went numb, I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t feel my hands…..The exact! same symptoms of a panic attack….As a person who has panic attacks, I have experienced that same impending sense of doom while stuck in traffic on the George Washington Bridge. SO After oxygen and enough Benedryl to knock me out for days, I survived, never really knowing, if I am deathly allergic to fire ants, or just a total schitzoid.

My friend “Jeff” has pockets in his pants. That’s where he sticks his balls. He needs a lot of them because I can only volley once before losing it to the far depths of the stratosphere. I don’t have pockets. So I naturally stuff my balls down my shirt. Worked out quite an efficient system ( I even named it ) ” The Madonna and child of tennis ball bra stuffing” I put one ball in each boob…and I’m a ringer for Madonna ( circa 1991 Blond ambition tour), I stuff a third down the center between the boobs, and then pull it out like birthing a small surprise baby tennis ball at a clutch (need a tennis ball moment). And all was good. Weeks pass, It wasn’t a flawless plan, I did notice that the tennis balls get dirty and then my boobs would get dirty, but hey that’s the price you pay for convenient balls. Then came Friday night.

Friday night was the first night I ever had the “Advantage” ( that’s French for advantage “Jeff” tells me) It’s not that I am improving so much as wearing down my opponent. We play into the dark and then I feel it. At first I thought someone spit a poisoned blow dart at me, I look around. Nobody, and then another one…it’s dark out, maybe they are camouflaged? I look down my shirt and… I don’t know that this has ever happened to anybody ever. I have a bra full of fire ants… Angry, unapologetic fire ants. I start wrestling with my clothes. ” Jeff” reaches for the video camera on his phone. I went to summer camp so I know how to take my bra off through my arm whole sleeve, which I do, and then I panic. They are all over me! And then I take my shirt off…at a playground, which I think could have led to sex offender status. We go on a mad rampage for Benedryl as I squeeze into “Jeff’s” ant free shirt which is the equivalent of Laurel and Hardy sharing clothes. We wait, I am waiting to see if I’m going to expire. “Jeff” is waiting to see if I do anything worthy of videotaping … Somehow, beneath ice packs and Benedryll and a couple zanax and an old Rodney Dangerfield movie, I managed to survive the ordeal.

Today I have constellations of ant bites all over my “western hemisphere” if ya know what I mean!, if anyone is looking for Cassiopeia well come on over. I also have a new sense of purpose..To prevent others from suffering the same fate! I have drawn the conclusion that it is my mission to spread the word…DO NOT STUFF TENNIS BALLS IN YOUR BRA.