Just to show you what a spoiled prick I am, one of my biggest “disappointments” in my entire life has been my son and his wife.

When they first got married, I had such high hopes for them. No, it’s not because they seem unhappy. No, it’s not because they have made poor career choices or have become addicted to booze or drugs or gambling.

It’s their fucking love of pickleball. Especially the smarty pants wife. She drops the grand baby off on Friday afternoon. I can smell the pickle on her. That mix of sweat, plastic balls, and shame from dominating a kid’s game.

It’s the same scent the wife used to get when I would beat my 7-year-old son at nerf basketball in the living room.

“What are you fucking smiling about,” she would say as the Boy would run into his room crying from some supposed injury when I landed all my weight on his foot or “slightly” pulled his shoulder out of the socket when goal tending his attempt to slam dunk off the couch.

I was teaching him valuable life lessons: “only the strong can win”.

But dealing with these kids and their “sport” is like watching your half-drunk uncle get red-pilled by Fox News.

“She drops the kid at the free gym daycare all morning so she can be part of the pickle clinic,” the Boy said. “Then drives the baby to your house and goes back to the gym to play the pickleball league.”

The other day she told the Boy she was really tired and didn’t know why. Apparently, she had spent more than 7 hours with the poisonous pickle paddle.

That pickle is a tough pill to swallow — for me.

I have a quarter garage full of tennis racquets and real balls — with air pressure and covered in felt. Not that plastic kids shit with holes.

I have a lifetime of experience to show people how to serve, how to slice, how to crush a forehand… In my dotage I’ve even learned to lob and drop shot.

All of it a waste.

The next generation has ignored my grand visions of a glorious life playing a real sport outside in the sunshine and running across an adult-sized court; in favor of lightly stepping around a kid’s court in the air conditioning playing with equipment one would find in a nursery school right behind the bubble machine.

It’s so fucking embarrassing.

My friend, Expert Bob, is one of the best elderly pickleball players in Arizona. He told me when he wins a medal or a cup, they just take a picture of it, and the event sponsors keep the “prize” for next time.

Bob and his friends are forced to put their medals on their paddles from their latest pickleball “win.” I told him it looks like a police lineup to identify Medicare fraud.

I told the daughter-in-law the shared trophy story.

She sent me this:

She gets to keep her “silver medal”. Apparently, when the players are only 30, the sponsors figure they have a future and let them hold onto the hardware.

I’m sure she will hang it somewhere prominent in their house. It feels like an albatross of failure around my neck.

Is it because in 45 years of tennis , I never won a medal?

No. Absolutely not. No. I said No.

Is it because my granddaughter has already been exposed to too much pickleball?

Yes — that’s part of it.

Is it because pickleball is the devil and should be sent back to the hell on Bainbridge Island from which it came?

Yes, yes that’s it. 100 percent…

The rest of you could only be so lucky to have this pilled pickle be your biggest problem.