Assumptions about me: Sports...

Being a 6'3" tall man with big hands, large shoes, and an attitude that just seems to confuse people I meet, I have had to deal with so many stereotypical assumptions throughout my life.


At family reunions (on my mom's side) I have been and will always be "the short one," as most of the men in my family exceed 6'4" and a few even stand taller than 7 feet. You can very likely guess where I am headed with this height thing, can't you?


SPORTS (And why I hate them):

• When I was a child, I would wake up every morning before school early enough to wolf down over-sugared cereal and watch my favorite cartoons: Scooby Doo, The Flip Side, Dungeon Master, He-Man, and of course Transformers.
• My mom, brother, and sister and I lived in my grandmother's basement at the time and shared the house with our grandparents and mom's older brother, my Uncle Bob.
• Uncle Bob, being the first male born to my grandparents, was thus the inheritor of everything in the house, including all of the televisions he personally bought for the household.
• Having never had a true father figure in my life, I had no one with whom I would ever learn to enjoy, take part in, or even watch sports of any kind.
• Every morning, during Scooby Doo, Uncle Bob would come out from his room and do stretches, exercizes, and the like - right in the center of the living room.
• This forced me and my siblings to sit directly in front of the television, a mere 12 inches or so away from the screen.
• This eventually lead to my need for corrective lenses, as I had ruined my vision by constantly sitting too close to the television.
• While on most occasions, Uncle Bob would simply wait until after his exercizes to take over the almighty television and change the channels, there were countless other instances when he immediately changed the channel right in the middle of our cartoons.
• So, there's the setup... Now here's the clincher:
• Since the television was bought and paid for by Uncle Bob, he was the "god" of the TV.
• Every time he changed the channel - right in the middle of Scooby Doo, he would turn on sports...
• Tennis
• Golf
• Bowling
• Football
• Can you imagine the sheer rage and tantrums I went into when - right as Fred was about to pull the mask off the monster - Uncle Bob suddenly switched to some guy whispering into a microphone as some other guy held a long stick with which he tried to slap a 2-inch ball across half a mile in order to land in a 4-inch hole?
• Thus, we arrive at the core of all hatred I have toward sporting events, sports broadcasting, and people who quote statistics like they were presenting information more valuable than gold...
• I grew to hate golf, bowling, tennis, and especially football (which seemed to be on all the time when I got home from school).
• Uncle Bob seemed to take no interest in teaching me or my siblings the rules of the game or how it could entertain.
• The Physical Education teachers at school all assumed that every student had complete knowledge of how to play every type of sport, so they did not bother explaining anything to anyone.
• Despite having grown, matured, and educated myself, I still find the fascination with sports an enigma.
• I can tolerate and ignore sports games when they are shown on television in someone else's home.
• I have blocked and locked all of the sports stations on my Dish Network DVR at home - you'll never guess the password!
• And yet, due to my height and build, people assume I play (or have played) basketball or football.
• When I deliver food on major football or basketball days to homes where men gather to watch their big-screens, I have to fend off their questions of who I am rooting for, or the declaration of the current score.
• Short people always ask me if I played basketball in school.
• I did not.
• I once had a PE class where they had us playing football and baseball alternately, and I had to ask everyone how to play or what the rules were.
• Everyone gave me weird looks, as their own fathers had raised them from birth to know every in and out of every sport imaginable.
• People would laugh at my ignorance and inability to know the difference between a home run and a touchdown.
• So --- why do I hate sports?
• I just do.
• I do not comprehend the fascination of watching other people run after/run away from/swing sticks at balls.
• To me, sports are for the jocks of the world who have nothing better to do with their time or their life.
• To me, Sports is a complete waste of time.