My new recent obsession is croquet. Why, you might ask? Not quite sure. My desire to play croquet is something recent, brought upon by two things.
1. My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” music video. The song’s been stuck in my head forever, and it’s getting a little annoying, but I really love the music video. One part of the music video has the band playing croquet.
It was so dorky, it was cute.
2. The second thing that brought upon my desire to play croquet happened this past Saturday at my aunt’s house. My cousins and I were playing bocce ball in the backyard (This is much more dangerous than it sounds for a few reasons: 1.) Their yard is mostly hills and trees. 2.) My mom’s car was dangerously close to where we were playing. 3.) Bobby thought it would be fun to throw the bocce balls as high in the air as he could and catch them again.) when my cousin Bobby stated that he wished we had a croquet set so we could play croquet. We were all a bit upset that we didn’t have a set, but I vowed I’d get one for my birthday.
So that’s basically what brought upon my desire to play croquet. To my delight, last night I actually got the opportunity. Here are some things to keep in mind when playing croquet:
Little Life Lesson #19: Do not play croquet in the dark, as you will either lose your ball in the grass (RJ) or trip over the wicket (Anna) or both.
Little Life Lesson #20: Do not play croquet in 20 degree weather as your fingers will become numb and then it will be quite difficult to hold your croquet mallet.
Little Life Lesson #21: Do not play croquet with people who think croquet mallets are toys as you will either get hit in the face (Megan) or in the hand (Sarah and me).
Now that I’ve established some Little Life Lessons, I will finish up with a few more things to keep in mind when playing croquet.
1. The best “move” in croquet is called a “send.” This occurs when your ball is sitting right up against another person’s. Then you place your foot on your ball, and strike your ball with the mallet so as to “send” your opponent’s ball away. (If you want to see this done, just watch the music video mentioned above.) However, and here is Little Life Lesson #22: When performing a send, make sure you have your foot properly placed on your ball, otherwise you will either “send” your ball away with your opponents or (the more likely case as I have found) you will hit your foot with the mallet. And that hurts. A lot. Especially if you do it five times in a row.
2. Here is my final word of advice, something very important to keep in mind when playing croquet. Croquet is much harder than it seems. Trust me. Of course, this could be due to the fact that I was playing at 10:30 at night in 20 degree weather, but I’m sure that even if I had perfect conditions, I still would have lost.
2 months ago
#1: The Fall. It’s a new movie with Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies) that’s only at the Downer right now. It’s probably one of the most visually stunning movies I’ve ever seen, and what makes it even more amazing is that all the scenery and locations are real, not digitally done. Do yourself a favor and watch the trailer; it’ll blow your mind.
