Wednesday, October 13, 2010

I am Bad at Sports - Four Square

I've talked about how I'm bad at kickball and bowling, but my inability to perform the most basic physical tasks extends beyond those two sports.  I'm also bad at four square, football, baseball, tennis, soccer, ice skating, running, biking, climbing, hiking, basketball, and more!  You name it, and I can pretty much guarantee that I suck at it!

Now, I know that this is a pretty outrageous claim, and that you all think I couldn't POSSIBLY be THAT bad at that many sports.  But you would be wrong.  I AM that bad.  Take four square, for instance!

When it became apparent that I was set on ruining everyone's chances at enjoying kickball, or when there weren't enough people to play kickball, the neighborhood kids would play four square.  This was fine by me because it was my FAVORITE game to play as a child.  I knew all the trick throws!

The cherry bomb, popcorn, lightning, baby bounce, and more.....but it didn't matter.  Because I never got to be King.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with four square, let me give you a brief explanation!  Players toss the ball to each other.  If you drop the ball or don't catch it, you are out, and move to either the back of the line of people waiting to play or to the bottom square.  Each of the four squares has a name and place in the four square heirarchy.


I spent most of my time switching between Loser Town and No Man's Land.  Whenever you got out, you moved back to loser town.  And everyone else moved counterclockwise around the square, filling your vacated position, and opening up Ace for you.

This is how I looked when I was in each position!

But of course....I almost never got to King.  My four square strategy involved a somewhat roundabout method of reaching the top.  If I could get up to queen, all I had to do was survive there until somebody else got the king out, or the king screwed up!  So I relentlessly attempted to get the queen and jack out, so I could take their place.

I think MOST people played this way, because the King made up all the rules.  And there were no limits on what those rules could be.  If this meant that the king declared that ONLY the king may use special throws, then that is the way it was.  You could actually aspire to get the queen out.  It was pretty much impossible to get the king out.

I would relentlessly pursue the queen, and pray for the king to screw up....but sadly....this was so rarely the case.  My time playing four square was more of a succession of getting hit in the face, chest, arms, legs, feet, and butt repeatedly.  I would try my hardest to get to king, but I can only remember it happening two or three times EVER.  My four square experience was spent moving between ace, jack, ace, and jack, etc, and it looked something like this....





.....It seems that my life is a never-ending sequence of getting hit with things....

I hope I get to be king again in the future.....cause that never happens. lol.

6 comments:

  1. Everyone knows that it is always the queen who has the most power anyway ;-)

    Next time the 4 siblings are together we should totally play four square! Until Jim gets mad, calls us all cheap and takes his ball and goes home.

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  2. What about hopscotch? :)

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  3. Lol. But the queen didn't have any power....Well...at least it was a female position.

    Also, hopscotch kicked my butt as well. I had TERRIBLE balance. And I had really bad aim too...my rock never landed where I wanted it to!

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  4. Four square is the worst, as is any sport in elementary school that wasn't the sport of filling out that scholastic book order form.

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  5. Haha, I totally forgot about the rock part.

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  6. This is so weird. I was randomly dreaming about hopscotch last night. HMMMM.

    Also, I was pretty awesome at kicking the ball and running the bases, but I HATE flying balls, so I sucked at playing infield. And outfield had the problem you so brilliantly described.

    Obviously, we're normal and this game is broken.

    Lorraine

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