Mom's Rules

"My house, my rules," is something that my parents recited to me numerous times growing up. However, over the last 3 1/2 years, their rules have slowly made their way into my house and my mouth. Some rules travel faster than others, the speed of "we're not air conditioning the neighborhood" is quite comparable to the speed of light. However, one of the rules I never thought would reach the maroon doors of my Fox Meadows apartment is my mom's favorite, "Don't Play Ball In The House!" Whether it was from my mother or the Brady Bunch, I often heard this rule, so that's no excuse. It's just something I didn't believe in and didn't take to heart.

Even after broken pictures, a decapitated porcelein donkey, angry neighbors and numerous cuts and bruises, the ASL (Apartment Sports League) was still going strong. The latest entry in the long-line of sporting events was X-treme House Horse. A rendition of the fan favorite, House Horse, the XHH combined the best part of House Horse, which of course is the location (Nick's Messy Room) with the best part of any good sport, violence. It began as a 1-on-1 (Chris V. Clinton) no fouls basketball game with the foam ball and small net. As the game progressed, the violence escalated. Soon enough, Nick entered the game making it more like a playground game of "Smear the Queer" than any sort of basketball game. As we fought for possession and tried to advance the ball to the hoop with gritted teeth, the loud crashes and screams were surely audible to Nina and the other residents of Fox Meadows. As the game winded down, I had been kicked in the eyeball, slapped in the face, and my large iPod in the hall had a serious dent in it from Nick's flying body. Pictures were knocked off the wall, Kittens food had catapulted from her food dish all across the room, and her water dish lay upside down.. Clinton was trying to make a last minute surge to take the victory in a game which we were not keeping score in. To quiet his attempts, I flew head first at him, knocking him over, into Nick's large stand up fan. Upon impact, the fan snapped in half and Clinton tumbled into Nick's bookshelf. The game was over. The sound of a fan breaking in half does well in place of a referee's whistle.

Stepping back and looking at the carnage and destruction that had occured in a short time, all three of us realized that mom's rule may actually hold some weight. Shortly afterward, the XHH was disbanded (due to the death of a fan.) However, in a house that has bullet holes from past residents, it's hard to see any of us putting an end to the fun and violence that characterizes The Ranch and instead of "Momma always says, don't play ball in the house," I think the saying, "Boys will be boys" is more applicable...