Smiley Face: Personal Narrative

Smiley Face Laughter often signifies a fun time, and for good reason. In reality, most people seek events out where there is a high probability of laughing. There is no question that a funny experience can turn a boring setting into one that no one wants to leave. For me, the constant in my funniest memories is sports. While the games themselves are not usually humorous except in a cynical sense, time spent with teammates before and after games and during trips often leads to events that I will always smile about. In fact, the funniest memories I have involve sports or teammates in some fashion.
One memory involves my very first high school sporting event. Although the real humor was recognized in hindsight, it is now a story that I cannot
My short legs and oversized T-shirt slowing me down, I quickly fell to the back of the pack. With the day being my first varsity tennis match, I was mesmerized by all the players hitting on the courts next to me, which slowed me down even more. Within moments, my eyes had caught onto a pair of someone’s bright yellow shoes, and I had to look slightly behind me to get a good look. While admiring them, I heard a dull thud and my head felt like it got hit by someone’s fastball. Feeling extremely dazed, I realized I had just ran into a chain-link pole. However, only feeling embarrassment and not any pain, I kept running until I put my hand to my forehead and saw the blood. My teammates quickly split up, found Coach, helped me to the bathroom, and called my parents. The worry my parents had just gotten over quickly came back when they got a phone call from one of the players, and they rushed to the courts only to find that the only place I was hurt was my ego. As a result of the cut I had on my forehead, I had to wear a goofy-looking headband the entire day. In fact, for the next two seasons, most of the opposing teams’ players only knew me as “the kid that ran into the pole.” The “could have been much worse” story has turned into one of my funniest experiences, and it almost always gets a chuckle out of those who hear it.
Jeremy Friesz, Gabe Meschke, and I were taking in all of the action on the second day of the tournament. During breaks in the action, the camera men would show fans on the big screen, and we were laughing at some of their antics. After Gabe bought a giant bucket of popcorn, I jokingly told him, “If we get up on the screen, you have to dump that bucket on Jeremy’s head.” When a few minutes had passed and we the camera had not found us, I forgot all about our deal. Ironically, it was about an hour later when I was telling Jeremy, “You know, I’ve only been up on the screen once, and I hid.” As I was saying this, we flashed up on the big screen, and Gabe’s face immediately lit up as he quickly slam-dunked the bucket on Jeremy’s head. The entire crowd let out a collective laugh, except for the people sitting in front of and behind us because popcorn had just flown all over them. Even after the hilarity died down, I kept laughing for a long time because of the perfect timing of the gag and its sheer ridiculousness. Furthermore, the story perfectly supports the idea that my funniest moments occur as a result of being around teammates and sports.
Wrapping up, the thought that all of my funny memories happen as a result of being in sports is not an idea I have always entertained. It occurred to me only after some reflection about my sporting career up until this point. Moreover, it