"In Da' Pooper"

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Let me set the scene for such a colorfully titled blog.

We went to an annual party for my beautiful wife's side of the family. Jack & Diane (I'm not kidding) throw the party each and every year at their beautiful home.

The food is great. There are plenty of things for everyone to do for amusement, and the company is usually great - except my brother-in-law Michael wore a Boston Sux Sux shirt to annoy me and then he annoyed me further with his Palin-based political agenda.

Anywhoha...

There is a beautiful putting green on the property and I ambled over and grabbed a putter. Sam, who is tethered to my leg, also grabbed one. As did Michael and another-right-wing-nut, my nephew, Matt. The final putter went into my nephew Johnny's hands.

And as usual, when men get together, it was quickly turned into a competition with my nephew Jake keeping it all in line we set off on a little tourney.

There was only a single hole-in-one the entire time through.

Johnny got it and he started to taunt me a little bit.

I had flashbacks to his Dad.

Same tone, same smile, same aggravating gestures.

"Who has a hole-in-one?" he asked me every single time I looked at him.

Yet it was getting down to the nail-biting time.

Sam and Johnny were well behind as we headed toward the final shots to grab the 15 points.

It was me against the two right-wing nuts for the title.

Jake flipped the quarter and lined us up to the final hole.

We would be going from the green to the rough and back to the green again.

I eyed it up and got ready.

The score was tied.

Everyone was chirping.

I wanted to win.

And just as I started to bring the club back I felt something weird going on.

Johnny had stuck his putter into my backside.

I held up on the swing and turned to face him.

It was the same smile.

Those same dark eyes.

The same voice called out to me and he said the exact same words.

"In Da' Pooper."

I lost the competition.

Stupid, cheating Matt Snell made a garbage shot from off the rough to sink it in two.

All I needed from Johnny were the most famous of all words Jeff used to speak on the golf course when a putt hung on the lip:

"Ahhhhhhh, that's a shame."

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