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Stupid Things My Family Does: The Golf Ball Challenge Edition (Part 1 of 2)

A new topic for the blog is born! Not sure how much mileage it will get, but since Hubby suggested the title “Stupid Things My Family Does,” I’m going to guess that he plans on keeping the blog busy with them.

Golf-by-turbotoddi-via-Flickr-Creative-Commons

Before living near a golf course, I imagined them to be sterile places. But quite the opposite is true. Deer can regularly be spotted enjoying the space during the day, while coyotes howling songs can be heard in the evening.

And then there are the humans. In off-season, people use the area for cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing. And in off-hours, kids love to run about on it and look for balls that have escaped from their owners.

Oh, did I say “kids”? I suppose I really shouldn’t be so exclusive.

Once the spring starts to hit, our children are itching to go for a walk on the course. Something about it is endlessly attractive to them. Stella is old enough to go on her own, but Max is still a bit too young. So Hubby often acquiesces to their wishes and agrees to take them out for a walk after dinner.

One evening not long before the Easter long weekend, the trio arrived back home and proclaimed that we were now embroiled in a serious “golf ball challenge” that would culminate with one team as winner, and one as loser, on the Sunday evening of the long weekend. And apparently, I was on a team. Girls against boys. The goal was to find golf balls that had sat hidden in the snow since the last golf season and the team that collected the greatest number of balls would be proclaimed winner. But somehow this wasn’t enough. The losing team would have to endure some sort of losing consequence, left undetermined as of yet.

Stella looked at me … waiting to see if I’d back out on her. I couldn’t say no to that face.

“Fine,” I said.

The next morning, I awoke to find that the teams had been named. Check out the posters that were affixed to their bedroom doors. Lions versus the Eagles. (Stella and I were the Eagles. I had as much choice in the name as I did in the actual challenge, apparently.)

posters

Hmmm. This was getting serious.

The trio went out again the next night (I was working late on a contract) and Stella was diligently doing her part to keep up the ball collection for us. Stashing areas had been developed so that each team could hide their growing collection of golf balls from the other team. Oh, and there was another rule I forgot to tell you: Neither team was allowed to keep count of how many balls they had collected. The suspense would keep building until the final tally on Sunday evening.

I don’t like to lose, but I kept up a decidedly uninterested façade to Hubby. Meanwhile, I would put Max and the school bus and Stella and I would squeeze in some hunting time before school started. (Insert evil laugh here.)

The collection of balls started to grow. And grow. And GROW.

On the Sunday of the long weekend, the family all set off for church. I stayed back on the premise that I would finish off the contract I was still trying to tie up. Once the car was around the corner, I shoved my feet into running shoes and set out with a large shopping bag to walk the golf course. This was a last chance for the Eagles!

Being a beautiful sunny Sunday, lots of people were relaxing in their backyards. That meant that lots of people were seeing me scavenge around looking for golf balls. It was highly embarrassing. But little did I know how much more embarrassment was to come.

Comments

  1. The suspense is killing me . Can’t wait to see if the devious strategy works out.

  2. I love this, amazing!!

  3. Who is the artist for the posters? They’re great!

  4. Go Julie! (It’s all about the evil laugh… ; ) )

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