Saturday, April 3, 2010

Parental Pressure

Oh, the joy of a parent dead set on their child becoming a professional athlete.  And wherever there's an obsession, there'll be a product to support it.  Thus:
Yes, the ubiquitous Nerf Basketball hoop.  The source of great joy to every boy, discovering he can dunk like the pros, only to be replaced by crushing reality when he ventures out of his bedroom and onto the blacktop to discover he is short, poorly coordinated, and has the vertical jumping ability of a small rock.  But I don't have a big problem with this, maybe largely because I enjoyed the nerf set as a child myself, but also because it claims you can "play" like the pros and yes, even today, if I played with this I would play like I was, well, maybe not Lebron James but at least James Jones.  

But right next to it on the shelves of Babies R Us was this... mess:
Because what do kids love more than playing?  That's right, practice!  And I think I saw Tiger warming up with this set before the Masters last year.  Or was it one of the other golfers?  You know, the white one.  Hmmm, pasty, doughy, kind of a douche?  Yeah, I dunno either.  

I just imagine Christmas morning, when your older brother opens the Nerf Basketball set and begins imagining himself as Lebron, dunking over all comers and winning the NBA championships and you open this disaster and look forward to imagining yourself as Ernie Els plugging away at the driving range.  Oh, be still my beating heart!

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