Finger Flickin' Good
No. 4 son (age 10) and his friends are all atwitter about a new pastime they’ve recently discovered: Paper Football.
You’re probably familiar with Paper Football, and yet, I must explain it. Because there’s an ironclad, inescapable and irrevocable rule of journalism that states: “Always explain everything, especially if you’re getting paid by the word.”
Paper Football is a game that uses a sheet of paper as a football. Of course, a sheet of paper bears virtually no resemblance to the oblate spheroid used in tackle football. So to improve its aerodynamic properties, the paper is folded, fold upon fold upon fold, until it achieves a roughly triangular shape.
(An aside: There was a family argument at my dinner table the other night about whether a paper football is an Isosceles triangle. This degenerated into further arguments about how some of the Isosceles love triangles on “Grey’s Anatomy” will turn out, and whether Isosceles would make a good name for a character in “Pokemon.” In the end, we agreed to keep searching for ways to keep our family name in the limelight for millenniums on end like that Isosceles guy did.)
Anyway, the object of paper football is to flick the “ball” across a table with one of your fingers until it pokes your opponent in the eye. Barring that, the next best thing is for your flick to cause at least one molecule of the triangle to protrude beyond the edge of the table. This means you’ve scored a touchdown, and can then try to “kick” an extra point that hopefully will hit your opponent in the eye. After, of course, clearing the “goalpost” that your opponent forms with his hands, both of which he holds in the shape of a capital “L,” much like the symbol for “Loser,” which you are trying to make him.
No. 4 apparently plays a lot of paper football with his friends at school, and so far, hasn’t run afoul of any rules or regulations against it. His only bad experience was spending a week on the disabled list after spraining his AFL (anterior flicking ligament).
I keep expecting him to come home with a woeful tale of paper football ruining friendships. I worry about this because paper football could get mighty competitive back in my youth. Games would sometimes deteriorate into pure brutishness, with my scrawny unprotected fingers being unexpectedly and illegally “tackled” in the middle of a flick by the iron fists of an opponent. This usually happened when I was way ahead, and, perhaps ever so slightly inconsiderately, comparing my opponent’s paper football skills unfavorably to those of an elderly, if not deceased, female relative, i.e., his great-great-great grandma.
I could envision this same scenario playing out for No. 4, because he lays serious trash talk on me when we play. It’s true I usually lose to him, but he’s got some physical advantages. For one thing, his little-bitty ten-year-old hands make a tough target for field goals and extra points. He’s also prone to drastically elevating the crossbar by propping his elbows up on the table. He usually does this just as I flick the ball into flight.
At least paper football gives him some respite from the labors of fifth grade. I’m tellin’ ya, they really pile on the homework. Or so I thought, when I tried lifting his backpack the other day; it weighed more than he does! Turned out it contained over 3,700 paper footballs. Apparently when he’s not involved in a game, No. 4 spends all of his free time manufacturing new balls. He claims he’s selling them, quite successfully, at a dime apiece. Although he’s desperately hoping to keep this quiet, so the IRS doesn’t come after him for sales taxes.
I noticed he uses two distinct types of paper for his footballs. He prefers clean white copy paper, which explains why my printer tray is always empty. But when that’s not available, he says he’s got a reliable source of old worthless scraps to fall back on. Upon closer inspection of his “worthless scrap” balls, I discovered they’re made from clippings of my columns!
So tonight, I’m going to trounce him in paper football so badly that his great-great-great-GREAT grandma will hear him bellering. And if I lose, well, I have a hunch he just might be hearing from the IRS.
# # #
TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
You’re probably familiar with Paper Football, and yet, I must explain it. Because there’s an ironclad, inescapable and irrevocable rule of journalism that states: “Always explain everything, especially if you’re getting paid by the word.”
Paper Football is a game that uses a sheet of paper as a football. Of course, a sheet of paper bears virtually no resemblance to the oblate spheroid used in tackle football. So to improve its aerodynamic properties, the paper is folded, fold upon fold upon fold, until it achieves a roughly triangular shape.
(An aside: There was a family argument at my dinner table the other night about whether a paper football is an Isosceles triangle. This degenerated into further arguments about how some of the Isosceles love triangles on “Grey’s Anatomy” will turn out, and whether Isosceles would make a good name for a character in “Pokemon.” In the end, we agreed to keep searching for ways to keep our family name in the limelight for millenniums on end like that Isosceles guy did.)
Anyway, the object of paper football is to flick the “ball” across a table with one of your fingers until it pokes your opponent in the eye. Barring that, the next best thing is for your flick to cause at least one molecule of the triangle to protrude beyond the edge of the table. This means you’ve scored a touchdown, and can then try to “kick” an extra point that hopefully will hit your opponent in the eye. After, of course, clearing the “goalpost” that your opponent forms with his hands, both of which he holds in the shape of a capital “L,” much like the symbol for “Loser,” which you are trying to make him.
No. 4 apparently plays a lot of paper football with his friends at school, and so far, hasn’t run afoul of any rules or regulations against it. His only bad experience was spending a week on the disabled list after spraining his AFL (anterior flicking ligament).
I keep expecting him to come home with a woeful tale of paper football ruining friendships. I worry about this because paper football could get mighty competitive back in my youth. Games would sometimes deteriorate into pure brutishness, with my scrawny unprotected fingers being unexpectedly and illegally “tackled” in the middle of a flick by the iron fists of an opponent. This usually happened when I was way ahead, and, perhaps ever so slightly inconsiderately, comparing my opponent’s paper football skills unfavorably to those of an elderly, if not deceased, female relative, i.e., his great-great-great grandma.
I could envision this same scenario playing out for No. 4, because he lays serious trash talk on me when we play. It’s true I usually lose to him, but he’s got some physical advantages. For one thing, his little-bitty ten-year-old hands make a tough target for field goals and extra points. He’s also prone to drastically elevating the crossbar by propping his elbows up on the table. He usually does this just as I flick the ball into flight.
At least paper football gives him some respite from the labors of fifth grade. I’m tellin’ ya, they really pile on the homework. Or so I thought, when I tried lifting his backpack the other day; it weighed more than he does! Turned out it contained over 3,700 paper footballs. Apparently when he’s not involved in a game, No. 4 spends all of his free time manufacturing new balls. He claims he’s selling them, quite successfully, at a dime apiece. Although he’s desperately hoping to keep this quiet, so the IRS doesn’t come after him for sales taxes.
I noticed he uses two distinct types of paper for his footballs. He prefers clean white copy paper, which explains why my printer tray is always empty. But when that’s not available, he says he’s got a reliable source of old worthless scraps to fall back on. Upon closer inspection of his “worthless scrap” balls, I discovered they’re made from clippings of my columns!
So tonight, I’m going to trounce him in paper football so badly that his great-great-great-GREAT grandma will hear him bellering. And if I lose, well, I have a hunch he just might be hearing from the IRS.
# # #
TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 1:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home