¡Champú en la ropa interior!

In all immodesty, I must share that my lanky frame has always been blessed with a measure of coordinations. Por ejemplo, there is the occasion of my first attempt playing at golf.

On my home island of Mallorca, golf is thought of as a womanly sport (and rightly so!) by the scarred and weatherbeaten fishermen. So it was not until my adult years that I swung a club not intended to batter a fish’s brain matter. I remember being led onto a course by a comely golf instructor tightly clad in the synthetic fibers.

She instructed, “You see that green area about 400 yards from here? Try hitting the ball onto it.”

I did so. After trudging to the green area, I inquired, “Now what?”

Here eyebrows lifted. “Now you hit the ball into that hole.”

¡Santo vaca! I laughed in surprise, gesturing back to where I had struck the ball. “Why didn’t you tell me that back there?”

Perhaps she had assumed that because I am a Spaniard, time-efficiency is of disinterest to me. So I hope the mujer de golf viewed my time-efficient heroics in our recent match against the most reviled Denver Nuggets. 

As you can see in the película, the sands of time were slipping away when I catapulted the ball of destiny skywards.

¡Pum— tres puntero!

And after Brandon Roy hoisted his own heroic deed, we entered overtiming, and emerged victorious-ing!

These moments of conquest are almost enough to wash away a recent, bitter memory of mine. No, not the departure of Joel Pryzbilla, although that gritty giant is already missed. Nor the arrival of the silent ebon colossus known as Gerald Wallace. No mi amigo, I refer to the incident following our winnings against the New Orleans Hornets.

In a fit of excitement following the match, Patty Mills committed an act most felonious. While I showered the grimes of competetition from my torso, the antipodean dwarf filled my underwear with shampoo. Shampoo!

Most worse, the substance was some vile Australian cleanser that rendered my undergarment useless. (But even as I drove homewards without it, I smiled at Patty’s defense of the move: “No worries, mate… I was just trying to put some roo in your ’do!”)

Top foto from Yardbarker.com,

Brandon Roy by Rick Bowmer for AP.

Lascivious Seating Arrangements

As a child lounging on Mallorca's sun-kissed sands, I received a fine education. Por ejemplo, I oft overheard grizzled fishermen tell the tale of Bernadino de Mendoza’s ambassadorial appointment to England.

It was the late 1500s, and Mendoza was shocked to attend an English church where women and men sat together in the pews. After the Spaniard vented his outrage to an English nobleman, the Englishman retorted:

“Such an seating arrangement would only be unthinkable in Spain. For there, men cannot rid themselves of lascivious thoughts even in the holiest of places!”

Ah, how the fishermen chortled!

For my part, I sometimes wonder how we players must carefully attend to a diagramming while choreographed undulations of the most intriguing sorts play out on the parquet. Is it unseemly to do the sidelong glancing? Perhaps.

Naturalamente, my mates and I are prohibited from interluding with these whirling sylphs. So why do they bat their lashes and call my name? Why, one non-ingenuous ingenue even chucked me under my bestubbled chin!

But chuck me not, Sirens of the hardwood. For there are countless tales warning of the danger of our heart’s desires. 

Has no Blazer Dancer heard of Tithonus? He was a Trojan prince who the goddess Eos fell in love with. Besotted by the handsome youth, Eos begged Zeus to give Tithonus eternal life.

Her wish granted, Eos realized the error— she had failed to ask for eternal YOUTH as well! And so over the years, Tithonus transformed into an increasingly decrepit hobgoblin until the gods finally took pity on him.

Adición: I asked two Blazer Dancers if they knew of Tithonus. They stared in wonderment, until one of them spoke: “Isn’t that something? He still can’t speak English!”