Reeves Buys A New Racquet

My friend Reeves and I had been playing mixed doubles with Robin and Traci for more than a few months. I asked Reeves to join our foursome to make the matches more competitive, you see, Reeves is a much better player than I am, not to mention younger too. OK, I mentioned it.

Reeves is a young man, OK I’ve mentioned this twice. I have known him since he was a pre-teen, about fifteen years now. One thing I’ve learned about him in the more recent past is, he is very frugal. A positive trait to be sure. So, in keeping with his frugal ways, Reeves had been borrowing one of my racquets to play with since we began our mixed doubles matches. In fact, he had used the same racquet of mine to whip me in singles me on at least one occasion!

So I had been casually mentioning how he should purchase his own racquet. I recently found a good deal on a Wilson Hyper Hammer on e-bay, “it was only $52 including shipping Reeves”. “Oh, yeah, I need to start looking around”, he would say.

Then, one evening as we were waiting for Traci to arrive, we always wait for Traci, Reeves pulled out the new Prince racquet he had bought earlier that week at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I felt dizzy for a moment and thought I might fall off my seat. The first thought I had was “Reeves spent some money?”

I regained my composure, I’m sure no one noticed. I took the racquet in my hand and felt its weight, looked at the design and complimented Reeves, “this thing feels great” I told him. I was trying to reinforce the idea that he had spent his money well!

Traci arrived, we warmed up and started our match. It was very close that night. Reeves and Traci won the first set 6 – 4 and Robin and I wound up squaring things by taking the second set 6 -3.

Late in the first set, on a changeover, Reeves started complaining about a noise coming from the grip and or neck of the racquet. “There’s something loose in there and it’s making a noise when I swing it”, he said. I took the racquet and shook it around a bit. Yep, there was something down in there, maybe a piece of the frame material had fallen into the hollow neck when the thing was manufactured. I didn’t think it was a big deal.

Reeves was obviously bothered by the slight clicking noises that could be heard coming from the racquet when everyone was quiet and someone shook the racquet back and forth close to your ear. In an attempt to make light of the issue and divert Reeves’ attention, I suggested that maybe the items in the racquet making the nearly inaudible noise, were really eggs belonging to a space alien race. At just the right moment, during a crucial point, the eggs would hatch and to alien creatures would reach their tendrils out of the racquet frame and consume him. Nothing to worry about I said.

Later during the match, Reeves was still obviously concerned about the particle that was loose in the racquet. I couldn’t take it anymore, “well, you’d better take it back and exchange it” I told him.

We managed to get through the second set and played six games into the deciding third set. We were three all when Traci had to retire because her arm was hurting. She was trying to come back from some pretty bad tennis elbow.

It was a good match, one of the best we’d had. Robin and I dominated the first few times we played but lately, Traci had improved and she and Reeves had been handling us with not much difficulty. But all I could think about was how my good friend Reeves had FINALLY spent some cash on a racquet but was not happy because something was rattling inside.

I assumed he would return the thing. We did not play again for about two months due to schedules, and summer trips etc. We finally got together a couple of weeks ago for a match. Traci stood us up, damn job, getting in the way of some recreational tennis. So Reeves, Robin and I spent about an hour just hitting around. All of a sudden it hit me, so I asked the question that needed to be asked.

“Reeves, did you exchange the racquet?”

“Yes I did.”

Inside I was grinning from ear to ear.