Schpeech Impedimentsch

I am one hundred percent convinced that some of the best times I remember I'm going to hell for taking such joy in. Seriously. There's no way that God is too busy doing something else to notice, and I just have these awful mental pictures of a Father Time look-a-like with a halo 'tsk'ing' and scribbling furiously in an enormous book while Saint Peter sits in dimly lit corner, perched on his workbench, dubiously fixing the most impenetrable looking padlock you've ever seen. Regardless of the mental images though, they remain my fondest memories and inspire endless giggling every time it comes to mind. Besides, I'd rather keep telling myself that we all do things that probably make God wonder if he set his goals to high for humanity.

To anyone who has ever been on a team of some sort, you'll know what I mean when I say there's just a random bond that a team setting creates with people who would otherwise probably have nothing in common or not really spend the time to get to know each other. This is how my club soccer team was in high school. The goofy shit that we cracked up about amazes me, but also feels so natural to look back on and chuckle. We were an enormous, dysfunctional family. A few of us in particular hung out together all the time - literally. We did everything together, and looked for fun everywhere. In one tourney in particular, we were playing our arch rivals. We hated this team and it was always a great match. We were all in defensive positions for the team, so our bond transferred onto the field quite well, and also made the team fun. In this particular instance, the game was tense. We weren't playing poorly, but we weren't winning either, and everybody on our team could feel that pressure. There wasn't any laughing going on that game, and we were all perfectly in tune with what needed to be done on the field and we were just trying to execute on it.

At one point, their team got possession and was coming down the right side of the field on an attack. One of their girls got through several of our teammates and was gunning towards our goal looking to send the ball to the opposite side of the field so they could try to score. All three of us looked at each other with a look of understood terror as we watched this scenario unfold upfield, and immediately went about our business. Right as we were falling into place and getting ready to stop this one of their players flew down the opposite side of the field screaming "cross it! CROSS IT!!" This doesn't seem like a big deal, but she had a speed impediment. She had the speech impediment that made "s" sounds come out like they were being pushed through tin foil. So the phrase swimming pool would be hell for this girl, and would later become a phrase that my horrible friends and I would repeat over and over through gasping laughter. Schwimming Pool. Another fun one was Indianapolisch Coltsch. Fun times... I'm sorry, God.