When is a Goon Not a Goon

They are killing me.

This afternoon we four girls make it to the tennis court. Three skater boys riding a train track fence were thoughtful enough to remind us that, yes, indeed, tennis sucks. I wanted to yell something back, but after 36 years of failed retort, I gave in to better judgment and ignored them. Something about the three of them, riding the rickety metal gate as it swung back and forth, and each one complaining how it hurt his balls to ride that thing, made it seem not quite worth the effort.

Then three minutes before we leave the courts, Edit and Mac start chasing after a ball. Mac gets there first and at the moment of conquest Edit takes a full racquet swing at Mac's head. Edit connects. I saw it all in front of me. It was not a wait one second then get back at you swing. It was a strike intended to prevent losing the competition, done in the heat of. Mac deflates on the way home. Her head hurts. She gets sleepy. She feels sick. I watch, and she eventually shakes off the concussion. I warn the youngest that if I ever catch her striking anyone with anything ever again, she will sit out of sports for a year.

But it is odd. There is something about that lack of the second. If it had not been in the heat of, I know I would have been a lot more upset. As if the fact that it was a competitive reaction made it ok, which is didn't, but it did a little, but it shouldn't have.

I hate/love hockey playoff season.