Why don't I play dodgeball any more?

Recently, I attended a friend's birthday party at a trampoline warehouse. Imagine 60 trampolines next to each other with the hard parts covered by gymnastic mats. Tilted tramps prevent people from falling onto the concrete, so you have a stadium-type situation. There were three arenas: one where you can just jump around, one with a foam pit, and one with dodgeball. 

Sound pretty fun? It's not bad, but after 10 minutes, you realize you're tired, and that's because you're old. Try a flip? There are simpler things that you probably tried, like jumping off the side tramps, that made you realize that a flip will probably result in an ugly accident in front of a bunch of teens. Your brain feels like it's been shaken loose, your back feels like it was given a deep tissue massage by an amateur masseuse, and your stomach feels like you had some slightly undercooked seafood. What to do? Try the other arenas.

First, the foam pit. The idea is to jump off a trampoline and land in a pool of softness. Take some old foam blocks from the 60's--possibly the 1860's--and dump them in a pit. Throw a bunch of sweaty kids in there night after night. Congratulations, now you know what I decided would be fun to land in: lots of gray foam blocks. People ahead of me had trouble getting out of the pit when they landed on their backs, so I decided to try not to embarass myself. I approached, messed up my jump, and had to restart. My next try was successful. I made it into the pit face first. I'm pretty sure I ate some of the foam. I later asked my friend, an MD, what was the worst thing I could get from eating some. She said there was no need to worry unless some kid pooped in there. That was comforting. What are the odds that a kid as young as 5 soiled himself as he fell out of the sky?

Not wanting to die from eating a stranger's . . . ick, I decided to try dodgeball. I used to be really good when I was in junior high. Here's the situation. You enter an arena, where you are divided into teams by the "ref" (aka 15 year old who thinks he's a badass). You are then let loose to throw balls at the other team. I waited around a bit just to make sure I didn't get out right away. After all, there were about twenty people on each team. I didn't want to get out before the 10 year olds--or get out by a 10 year old. I had my pride to think about. I threw one ball, and hit nobody. 

Then, there were about 7 people left on each team. I scanned the other side to see where people were and where the balls were. This was my chance to shine and get somebody out. I was nervous, but I thought I had an advantage on all these chumps because, when I was 12, I was really, really--a ball out of the corner of my eye. The figure of a sizable black kid following through on his throw. Years of latent reflexes kicking in. I duck! Glory!

Wham! It turns out that I ducked quickly enough to get my face to ball-level. And it turns out that the kid was a pretty accurate and powerful thrower. Fortunately, it was a soft dodgeball so I could still see out of my eye. As I left the court, I was a little angry but more embarassed and tried to give him props for his hit. I heard one kid say, "Damn, that guy just got NAILED." I like to think somebody else got smacked right after me. I decided it was time to return to ruining my back and leave dodgeball to the youngins.