Lets recap: I'm terrible at soccer (I missed a wide open shot), I'm not good at making soccer decisions (going with the left foot), and this is not a one-time occurrence (I sucked all year). Yet they still rewarded me with a trophy. What kind of message is this supposed to send? The only way I should've gotten a trophy is if I had promised never to play soccer again.
But it gets me thinking, the generation before ours had to be good to get a trophy. My generation got trophies just for participating. What's it going to be like for my children? If we continue the trend forward, they're going to get trophies for things they didn't even participate in! They'll come home from school with a karate trophy, and I'll say:
Me: "I didn't know you were in karate."
Son: "I'm not. They give us trophies for everything now. Hey -- how come you didn't ask me about the ballet trophy?"
Me: "Umm... I guess I didn't see it."
Son: "What do you mean you didn't see it? Its 6 feet tall! And its sitting on the fireplace! You know that I'm not in girl scouts, right?"
Me: "Look - I'd love to sit here all day and took about what I don't know about you, but in the meantime lets throw some of these trophies in the fireplace - I forgot to pay the heating bill again."
Son: "Right - forgot. Just like you 'forgot' to pay the phone bill and car payment last month."
Okay, so I guess in the future I turn into some kind of deadbeat. I have no explanation for that. I didn't ask for these powers!
Posted by mill1991 at October 14, 2004 10:07 PM
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I think you're on to something. A while ago, just after I had started taking karate lessons, I was badgered into going to a tournament by my friend/instructor. I had about 3 lessons under my belt and was competing against 4 other people in a form division. As you can tell, my odds of placing were pretty good. When you factored in that my competition was either fat, old or both, my chances went to somewhere between "Bush is a dufus" and "Cheney is in charge", that is to say, it was a shure thing. Well, I placed first, complete with five foot tall made-in-third-world-country cardboard and plastic trophy. It would have been kind of neat to display what amounted to my reward for showing up, but where the bean am I sopposed to put such a monstrosity? Not only is it outrageously gigantic, but but try coming up with a response that isn't dissapointingly anticlimactic when your friends ask what the five tiered temple of a trophy is for.
Posted by: Cogitus Creo at October 15, 2004 3:13 AMI have a couple questions that I would like addressed by Tim. Recently the Fox affiliate in Milwaukee, Wis. stopped airing Seinfeld in the 6:30 time slot and replaced it with Malcolm in the Middle. Can anyone over 11 years of age rationalize this decision? Today when people of our generation flip through the channels and M*A*S*H is on we think, “who is the heck ever watched this show, and why was it so popular, this is a waste of perfectly good air space…” Has Seinfeld become our generation’s M*A*S*H?
Love,
Frankie Muniz
Not to create too much of a backlog in the "Ask Tim" queue, but I've been wondering about something for a while. I think you've addressed this before, but I don't recall a definitive answer. Why are guys afraid to talk to girls they're attracted to? Do these women have some type of secret "dominance ray" that they use premptively on potential mates? Is this an evolutionary adaptation designed to contol population size? Or perhapse God is really a woman and this is some cruel feminist joke?
All I know is that dating sure would be easier if women went around pretending to be in relationships, thus preventing this particular problem, and then asked out the guys they found suitable.
Posted by: Cogitus Creo at October 16, 2004 3:28 AMA meta-comment: despite all appearances to the contrary, I'm going to guess that guys *do* have the good sense (!) not to talk to girls they're attracted to, because they know how far out of their league attractive girls are.
That's why attractive people are generally stupid: they're the offspring of attractive women and particularly stupid men.
Posted by: Epistaxis at October 20, 2004 1:08 AMA meta-meta-comment: I feel I must correct your logic Epistaxis. It seems clear to me that attractive people are stupid because they are the offspring of stupid attractive women AND stupid men. Smart attractive women recognize that there is _no one_ in their league, and therefore don't have children.
Posted by: Cogitus Creo at October 23, 2004 12:16 AM