Pickle Pressure

‘Just Say No” to pickleball

As an overweight, middle-class, suburban dad, it was only a matter of time before the pickleball epidemic sank its hooks into me. Now I’m afraid it will do to me what it has done to so many guys like me — erase all other aspects of my personality.

The storm clouds have long been gathering.

The tennis team I joined was effectively disbanded. Most team members were less than a decade from collecting social security, and after having tried pickleball, they preferred the racquet sport that didn’t require several days of icing their knees after a match. Two of the tennis courts in neighborhood were converted to pickleball courts, a move cheered on by residents. This has been occurring in other neighborhoods around suburban Atlanta, to the point they will no longer been known as “swim and tennis”, but rather, “pool and pickle” communities.

Perhaps the most significant sign of the incoming storm was when my older brother was caught in the pickleball maelstrom. His most notable athletic accomplishment, growing up in a family of sports lovers and athletes, was scoring an own goal in soccer. Sure, he’ll occasionally watch sports for a moment at family gatherings, but mostly just to laugh at the multiple inadvertent double entendres a minute from the commentators (“Great penetration there that left the quarterback no choice but to take the sack”) or to admire the bulging balls and strikes of form-fitting baseball pants. Naturally I was shocked to hear that he had experimented with pickleball and come away instantly addicted. I was warned about this kind of thing by all those D.A.R.E. programs in elementary school, and then it hit so close to home.

I have been purposefully abstaining from the pickle poison for years. I couldn’t allow myself to become such a cliche. Pickleball is the gateway drug, I reasoned. Sure, maybe it starts innocently enough, but soon enough, I’d be one of those guys who only drinks Michelob Ultra, who has a wardrobe entirely made up of golf or UV-protectant fishing shirts and who is entirely too involved with using his $1,400 smoker though he has the cooking skills of soggy carpet. God, I might even do the unthinkable and run for HOA president.

Though I have never given into peer pressure to do drugs — I always wanted to do them without influence — the pickle pressure was too much. Like norovirus moving through a household, the pickle sickness first attacked my brother and then my mother. I was inevitably next.

There I stood, paddle in hand, buzzing with beer and Thanksgiving food coursing through my system, ashamed the storm had finally crashed upon my shore. And I had practically welcomed its arrival.

Worse still, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

This was undoubtedly helped by me playing against family members and not pickle-bros. But really, I just loved the game itself. Pickleball is a game that is so much like tennis, a sport I love, only it’s far better suited for people, like me, who are allergic to strenuous exercise.

The far smaller court size is an incredible advantage for those of us with a midsection paunch large enough to inhibit breathing while we tie our shoes. Plus, it’s really hard to swill beer when you’re out of breath, and like any good suburban dad, I need the confidence beer instills in me to make a complete ass out of myself trying to cosplay as an athlete while on the pickleball court.

There are also other rules I appreciate, like having to serve the ball below your waistline. This is extremely convenient when you’ve been playing and drinking for a few hours and it’s easier to hunch over that stand upright. Another rule, as it was explained to me, is that you must let the return, played from a serve, bounce on the court before playing the ball again. This is clearly a rule made with the intention of a more relaxed pace of play; a rule that was constantly repeated to me after I smashed the ball with all my might after my opponent sailed a return to me.

I hesitate to admit this, but the only thing that could get me to stop playing that evening was my overfilled bladder.

Even more embarrassing, that night after my wife and child had gone to bed, I opened an “incognito tab” on the internet. Shielding my phone should anyone to come down the stairs, I plugged in “pickleball paddles” into my search bar, my heart racing all the while that I may be caught doing something so shameful as looking to buy one.

So, now I suppose I’m just another addict.

Unless I kick this nasty new habit, soon I’ll be air-swinging my arms at random, imagining I’m scoring a dramatic, match-winning point over my opponent; a woman born during the Eisenhower Administration. I’ll start using phrases like, “Nice shot Nancy, does your husband play, too?” to a grown man and believe it to be supreme comedy. I will lobby to miss important events with friends and family because I can’t miss the tri-weekly “drop-in” pickleball night in the neighborhood. I’ll insist that a $280 paddle “isn’t really that expensive” to my wife, who I will complain about to my fellow picklers. I’ll be the guy who takes pride in the brand of cooler I bring to the court.

I’m going to become absolutely insufferable.

Pickleball. Not even once.

Photo by Brendan Sapp on Unsplash