Pickleball and Online Degrees

My friend Joe and I had our first real tournament game in doubles pickleball last Thursday. We played two housewives who were very nice, and very new to the game. Both of us are tennis players, so there wasn't a whole lot of excitement until the last game. In fact, we only lost one point in the two games that meant something.

My form of entertainment during the games was talking to Joe about how we could use mental tactics to win the games against these very nice ladies, such as yelling at them while they are swinging at the ball, hitting the ball hard at one of them to send a message, hitting the ball way out of bounds and insisting that they get it, etc. Needless to say, we didn't actually do any of that, but it was funny talking about it.

For the last game, we decided to switch partners so that it might be a little more even. During the game, Joe hit a ball moderately hard at me when I was at the net. We both laughed about it. At the end of our time, when there was less than a minute left, Joe came to the net and hit the ball to me. I decided to have a little fun as well and just whaled the ball directly at him. Watching him flail at this high-speed wiffle ball that hit him was the highlight of my evening, and I couldn't stop laughing about it. Joe, fortunately, is good-natured.

Found out later on that Joe and a different friend were hanging around, and through conversations found out that one of the ladies was a elementary school teacher of Joe's friend's kid. When the teacher found out that I was a minister, she jokingly asked if I got my degree online. She admitted that she had an enjoyable time playing with us, but I thought the "online degree" comment was a great line.