I am the balls expert

Get your mind out of the gutter, pervs! Read on…

First, let me start by saying a big THANK YOU to the people who sent e-mails asking if I was okay because I hadn't posted for a while. I had a very busy week-ish and next week it will be that way too. Thanks for thinking of me and asking about me. That is very kind.

Ok, now about the balls....

I knew that Desert Dawg would eventually be noticed by the neighborhood kids. I was hoping that it would be later rather than sooner. I had a few months before the little urchins made it around to my yard. I knew they had discovered her when the little human-child “how how-ing” began from around the wall.

The next thing I knew, the daily game of “kick-the-ball-against-the-parking-area-wall” turned into a repeated ritual of “the ball comes over the wall and the kids follow to get it back”. It isn’t like the ball just landed in my yard once… or twice… or three times; it was repeated as they tried to climb over the locked fences to see and potentially have the chance to maybe even play with Desert Dawg.

Dawg is so friendly that she welcomes most people. She has a real problem with small children (bad experience as one tried to grab her around the neck), but kids from 7 and up seem to be okay with her. So she usually wags her tail and is generally happy towards most people. The ones she doesn’t like, I stay FAR away from because her instinct is good. For that reason, if I date someone, they must pass the Desert Dawg Dating Test. If she doesn’t like dude, chances are I won’t either.

Anyhoo… that’s for another post…

I’m not worried about Desert Dawg biting anyone. She’s so small that her hardest bite feels like a rubber band being snapped on your hand. I know because she has tried it with me twice in her 10 year old life; she doesn’t break skin. What I am worried about is HER safety. I don’t want some little kid to leave the gate open or hurt her in anyway – unintentionally or perhaps not. There would be a lot of dead little kids on my block at that point and I don’t want to go to jail (my priorities would not be the harm of children should they hurt DD, as you can see).

So, I started to get upset with the urchins who were mackin’ on my quiet time (5 to 7) with balls coming over the fence constantly. Balls, balls, balls. By chance, one of the times the ball “fell” into my yard, the landlady’s brother was walking by and told the kids that if it came over one more time, I would keep it and not give it back (his idea). He made me promise to keep it saying that the kids were giving them a problem in the rest of the building with other tenants as well.

Ok, so… you know what happened… the ball came over the wall the next day and I kept it inside my apartment. The cute one, Yousef, has this sweet, innocent little boy voice, and started pleading from the other side of the wall, “Excuse me. Excuse me. I’m sooooorrrryyyyy. I want my ball.” Just the kind of psychological terrorism that they KNOW they can whack a single 29-something-ish woman with. Luckily, The Romanian was there and told them to go get their father and we would give it back to him. They said he was on vacation (a likely story).

Anyways, I kept the ball in my apartment and went out with The Romanian to go do something. By the time I got home, it was dark and the urchins were already asleep in their urchin-beds. I felt bad the entire time I was out about that damned ball. I knew what was going to happen. I would be branded as that mean American lady who stole the ball from the kids. The whole neighborhood would know soon enough and I would be shunned. People would give me dirty looks. They would throw things.

So… with shunning on my mind, I walked over and carefully placed their ball on their doorstep and left – being able to get a good night’s sleep without worry of being treated like Quasimodo.

The next evening, I didn’t hear the ball. When I finally did hear something, it was the little ‘un with the pathetic voice asking for his ball. Oh snap! Someone musta stolen it.

It started my Quest for the Perfect Ball. I can’t even tell you how many stores I went to. I went to cheap stores and expensive stores. I felt balls from plastic to some kind of synthetic that felt like silk. I’ve seen white ones and blue ones and yellow ones…. I didn’t know, for example, that balls (soccer, that is) come in different sizes. Were you aware, mithilin, that futsal balls feature low bounce and are the best for indoor use? Huh. Innnnnnnnnteresting.

So, this is how I became the Balls Expert.

I couldn’t decide what ball to get them. I opted for a mid-range blue and white ball with a cool design (yeah, that's tech-speak). Bu Yousef came home from his trip and walked over and said with a smile, “My son said you wanted to talk to me.” Very nice guy. I explained and said that I bought them a new ball and I don’t think I have to worry about being Ms. Quasimodo in the neighborhood. The neighbors seem to like me more now for some reason and people are actually talking to me. Go figure.

So…. I bought them their mid-range blue ball… and then I discovered Go Sports’ balls…. They have the BEST BALLS in Kuwait! I found my favorite and all I wanted to do was to play with it. I couldn’t stop myself. The Romanian finally had to pull me away. It was a Manchester United red, shiny ball. I don’t even play ball, but my God – I sure wanted to play with THAT ball.

It is no longer about the children. Gimme the red shiny ball!!!! Look at it! Who wouldn't want to touch it???? It's a DEAD SEXY BALL BAYBEEEEE!





Note: I know that lots of men in Kuwait are balls experts so please feel free to comment. You know you want to....