Ecole Lac des Bois Elementary- Tennis Court

Close to home

With all due respect to the game of tennis and the French language, we need some fresh lines painted on this tennis court. I mean this city is about to loan 32 million dollars and this hasn't even come up once. This is causing real problems. Take tonight for example. We're playing doubles and it's my service. I'm feeling pretty good at the line lately, so I absolutely rip a serve and my opponent gets a (lucky) racket on the ball and sends it back. We're both watching it and it lands on a faded area of the lateral boundary line. I exclaim "it's out!". He disagrees and he is livid. He's all the way up at the net and he's adamant that the ball was in. I insist that it wasn't. "You're a liar!" he says. Before I can defend my good name he's over the net and we are nose to nose like manager and umpire. The tennis court being immediately adjacent to a playground and funeral home, you can imagine this is quite a scene. "You're a liar just like you're old man!". "I'm not like my old man!" I refute. We lock horns. No getting around it. We go right to ground and he finds a way to put me in a figure-four leg lock. If you've ever been privy to the experience you know that I'm in a fair amount of pain here. I won't tap, I can't. The ball was out. With everything I have I roll over and reverse the leg lock. A crowd has gathered and they are frenzied. "It was in! It was in!" he cries. The pressure on his knee approaches unbearable. I rise up for leverage. If I lean to the left it's possible he never plays tennis again. I feel my partner pull me off while he screams "Stop! Stop! You can't do this! Not again!". (He's referring to similar leg lock situation I was in when they opened Masich place stadium and refused to allow me onto the turf. Don't get me started). Now we're apart but we are staring daggers. The intensity is palpable. "Thirty-love" I say. He concedes, walks to his racket, and winces as he picks it up. The crowd dissipates and we take the match 6-4, 6-3, 7-6. Until the city of Prince George starts to take it's upkeep seriously, these types of unavoidable situations will continue to plague the tennis playing community.