Skunked

Last Friday was, as it always is, curling night.

We've been doing pretty well this season so far.  Don't quote me on this but I think we've won our last 12 games.  Sometimes it's a slaughter, other times it's down to the last rock in the last end, but we've won much more than we've lost.  Our winning streak has been pretty validating since three of four members of our team are complete neophytes.  We try hard but, more often than not, Doug saves us by throwing two fabulous rocks at the end and getting us a few points.  The rest of us just try not to make too much of a mess for him to have to work with.

Last Friday, the final score for the game was 13 to 0.

Pretty impressive non?

Too bad it was the other team that got 13 points.

We, to put it mildly, sucked.

In fact, we were so ridiculously bad that, once we realized there was no hope, we could do nothing but laugh at ourselves.  

The other team stopped marking down the points after about three ends because it would have been too embarrassing.

I threw a lot of rocks that were right on target in terms of aim and amount of curl but my muscles seemed to have atrophied.  It took Klari, Steve AND Doug sweeping like mad to get the rock even close to the house.  Klari, who usually has a light touch, kept throwing rocks that sailed right across the ice, through the house and hit the boards on the other side.  Steve alternated between throwing the wrong weight and missing on the aim.  And Doug, our saviour, had caught my cold from hell and couldn't make a solid shot no matter how hard he tried.

At the end of the game, he got off the ice, sneezed a few times and then walked over to Chris and Janice, held out his wrists and asked them to put him out of his misery.  (Thankfully he's feeling much better now and has climbed back off the ledge).

Luckily, we play Friday night curling - a friendly game that has no strings attached and always ends in a few rounds of drinks.  Klari and I consoled ourselves with the thought that, because we were losing, we get free wine at the end. For the first time in about twelve weeks, I didn't have to buy the first drink.

Thank goodness for small mercies.