Friday, July 14, 2006

How not to play four square

A few summers ago after my sophomore year in college I was playing late night four square with some roommates under street light. We had been making the court in the parking lot regularly for about a month and later the complex brought in one of those oversize dumpsters with gates on one end for people to get rid of nasty furniture.

They put the dumpster a few feet off one of the baselines adding a new and exciting improvisational element to the game. Awesome factory eleven. It was turning out to be a heck of a summer.

Then, after holding the servers square for a prodigious amount of time I thought I should kick it up a notch and serve from on top of the rail of the dumpster. I tried to one hop the dumpster and when I put my foot down I caught only a portion of the rail. My knee cap couldn't support the weight, turned an exterior 90 degrees, and I went flailing into the furniture bin in flabbergasted, inflamatory leg pain.

Stuck in the dumpster and afraid to move my patella to its rightful position, my roommates called 911. Fourtunately, the dumpster wasn't too uncomfortable due said nasty furniture.

I’m pretty sure there were at least four emergency vehicles on the scene. The medics opened the gated side, removed furniture and cleared a path to carry me out on a stretcher.

On the ambulance ride to the ER my knee cap gloriously moved back into place thanks to a hastily constructed cardboard brace.

If there is a moral to be found here it is...

Do not play extreme four square in sandals.