FOG

Wednesday, we're playing another new team. (New being a relative term, meaning they weren't in our league last session.) I'm front row, right, playing off the net mostly. Now that the nets are close to regulation height, my ability to block is mostly gone. There's an older guy playing across from me. Seems all right, except that he's one of those guys who thinks that coed leagues were made for outstanding male players to show off their talents; women are there simply to fill out the roster.

What I mean is that when he's supposed to be the setter, he works out something with the woman to his left so that they switch on the attack. Um, whatever, if it makes you feel better. It certainly wasn't helping them at all: in fact, it cost them a couple of points because he wasn't in position in time. (On top of that, it nearly set us up for a nice little point by yours truly, except I bumped the ball straight into the net instead of into a recently-vacated area. anger. anger.)

So anyway, once or twice he's pretty close to the net, maybe even reaching over it, but whatever, it's just C-league. And then on this point, someone sets me, and I pop the ball over, and I hear this flip-flip-flip-flip sound, like someone's raking his hand through the net.

The guy opposite me says nothing. Uh, sure, whatever. We keep playing the point, and then finally the two other people in front on our side ask him "weren't you in the net?" Even the woman front right (remember, he switched) is asking him this.

Finally, as the point is about over, he says something like "Well, I guess I might have touched the net a little, but it didn't have anything to do with the play, are we counting that now?"

a) Now? We count it every time, jackass, whether or not the ball is anywhere near you. Especially when you try to pull the net down.

b) Didn't have anything to do with the play? Either you jumped when the ball was there and raked the net, in which case you're a liar, or you jumped when the ball was nowhere near you, in which case you're a retarded monkey.

c) FOG. He wasn't happy when we won the game, and of course didn't say "Good game" as we went through the handshake line.

FOG? <earmuffs>Fuckin'</earmuffs> old guy. You know the type: usually 10-20 years older than the guys they're playing, but isn't anywhere near in that kind of shape, so they have a certain style of play to make up for it. In basketball, it's the guy who grabs your shirt every time you cut through the lane, or pokes you when you go up to shoot, or elbows you when you jump for a rebound. In softball (slow-pitch, of course, these guys can't handle fast-pitch), it's the guy who calls strikes when he's pitching in a pickup game, or pounds his glove in the infield every time a runner comes by, or tries to take out the five-foot-tall girl at second on a forceout.

And when you call them on it, they never admit to it. ever.

If you have a 50-year-old body, and you want to compete with 20-year-olds, play video games, know your role, or get the hell off the court. It's C-league coed volleyball, not the Olympics ... and if it were a serious match, we'd have refs, and you'd have been called for being two feet into the net, so STFU.