For most of my life, the tetherball gods had blessed me. I often stood taller than my opponents, be it in Colbert Elementary or alongside Lake Travis on a Bachelor Party weekend. I also had longer arms, allowing me to patiently wait for the ball to be just within the tips of my reach and just far enough out of my opponents to allow momentum to build clearly in my direction. I could be beat, yes. But it often took mistakes on my own part.
At a certain point, when tetherball seemed too childish, I got my ass handed to me. In trying to see just how quickly I could tie up the ball, its grip would escape me and it’d wind up in a furious dervish beyond my reach. In other words: I was literally thrown for a loop.
