My tennis season has been so shitty, it should be listed in a police report. I’ve been phuong-ed 4 times this year and it’s only Valentine’s Day. Getting Phuong-ed is not as pleasant as it sounds.

For those of you who have not have the pleasure of a good phuonging, you have to meet Phuong. (The PH is pronounced with a “F” sound like my favorite name for a restaurant “Phuket Thai”). Phuong is a 40-year -plus man who is 3-foot nothing and covers a 27-foot wide tennis court like a ping pong table. The 27-inch racquet is longer than his arm and the 110-inch head is bigger than his torso. I literally feel like if I took a Yoga class once a week for a month, I could stretch enough to lift my foot above my waist, and I could crush little Phuong like a New York cockroach.

Watching him play tennis is like watching the Star Wars scene when Yoda fights. All of a sudden this little shit is flying around everywhere hitting everything in sight. Just when you think you have him beat, the match is over and he ended up with more fucking points.

This year, it hasn’t been just the Phuong, the crabbie cabbie and a couple of other doubles teams have done the same thing. I win a set, have control in the second set, and then the shit storm rolls in and I lose in a tiebreaker.

The shit storm has come in various flavors this year with a few bad calls, some crappy attitudes and a torrent of errors by me and fucking miracle shots from the mother fuckers on the other side of the net.

Most practice sets I haven’t had this problem. I, or my doubles team, get a lead and we finish. We don’t let our friends win – I’m not Larry Ward for fuck’s sake… But these shit heads I barely know keep crawling their way back.

After some thought and consulting with the Filippino god-father from Indiana, I believe I figured out the problem. I haven’t hit anybody in the face this season. In practice matches sure, I’ve hit a couple people near the balls and little Danny in the chest, but in the matches I have tried to carefully construct points and hit the ball to the open court.

That’s not me. When I get a short ball at the net, I just need to hit it as hard as I can and not worry where it goes – that’s how I play with my teammates, and that’s how I need to play these other shit heads. If you don’t get out of the way, that’s your fucking problem. Don’t blame me, blame Tony P, he told me to do it.

As far as I know no one has ever died from a tennis ball. The most damage I’ve ever heard of is when Patrick Simpson tore a retina, but that was self-inflicted. Don’t ask me how, but he hit himself in the eye with a tennis ball.

Sooo… I mention all this because it’s Valentine’s Day, and while other men consider what they need to get their wives, I’m focused on figuring out how I can hit them in the face.

I know, I know… you are thinking the same thing – I might be having a bad tennis season, but the Bear has been getting Phuong-ed like this for 30 years — lucky her. Happy Valentine’s honey.

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