My Thumbs Get Plenty Of Exercise

My brother and I were discussing the details of online, multiplayer gaming the other night over my grill. We were trying to determine when time in our schedules would allow us to play Modern Warfare 2 on a weekly basis. We spoke of renewing Xbox Live memberships and discussed who else we ought to try and recruit. I reckoned my brother-in-law would be willing and we might be able to get his cousin in on the action as well. I was pretty excited about the opportunity for some male bonding and commented that it would be nice to get a group together for some mutual fun.

My father had been listening in and walked over. He proposed another idea.

“How about golf?” he asked.

I hesitated, thinking it was unusual that my father would be interested in playing something online with us. Then I thought maybe he was just suggesting something for my brother and I to play.

“I don’t think we all have golf games,” I responded.

My father looked at me with disappointment in his eyes. It was a level of disappointment I had not seen since waking him up at one o’clock in the morning to tell him I’d smacked his car into the guard rail and that I’d need to be borrowing his other car to get to work the next morning.

Apparently, my father had meant real golf. Yeah, like getting outside in the fresh air and playing eighteen holes by swinging real clubs, not a Wii remote. That kind of golf.

As someone who enjoys the outdoors and was fairly athletic at one point in his life, I felt a bit embarrassed. I tried to cover that embarrassment up by saying I would definitely be interested and that I’m sure we could get a foursome together some time in the near future. Still, I couldn’t believe that the thought of golf led me first to the dark coolness of my basement, playing a video game rather than the sunshine and lush green of a real course.

Is this what I had become? Would I rather play sports digitally than physically? Was I on the verge of converting my basement to a multi-console Mecca of virtual sports? Would I simultaneously pursue Super Bowl, World Series and Stanley Cup titles and juggle my front office and rosters while my ass slowly increased in size until it filled all of the double-wide easy chair meant for my wife and I to sit together in?

I decided then and there not to allow that to happen. I would get my still only single-XL ass out and get some exercise. I needed to get onto a real course. And for those of you who don’t think golfing is exercise, let me assure you that while, yes, we do rent carts, hitting a ball 100-plus times in a day is a workout. No, I don’t care that I just revealed how pathetic my average score is.

Immediately, I began thinking about how often I would be able to sneak off to the driving range and get a few buckets in. If I was committed to doing this, I wanted to be the one who could make fun of everybody else’s drive while mine sat in the middle of the fairway 200 yards off the tee. I can dream anyway.

Then I started thinking I could even take the boys with me while my wife is at work. They’ve been to the driving range before. We have kids’ clubs that they share and enjoy taking a few whacks. It would make sure that I didn’t let them slip into the lazy, assume-you-meant-video-game-sports mode that I had obviously let myself descend into.

I continued to cook my red meat over the smoldering embers in the bottom of my Weber. I was proud of the commitment I’d just made to a healthier lifestyle and the example it would set for my young sons. Just then, I looked over to see my seven-year-old, wrapped in his Snuggie, sitting down in the middle of the trampoline, playing his DS. The glow from its screen lit his concentrating little face in the coming darkness of nightfall.

“That thing is meant to be jumped on, you know!” I shouted at him.