Taking Inventory

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The standard line among people over 55 is that:

 “I went to bed feeling fine and I woke up unable to walk.” 

Saturday morning inventory went all right.

1). A little creak in the neck.

2). Feet feel all right.

3). Back is passable.

And I didn’t even get all the way through the inventory before the small, red football hit the floor by my feet.

“Let’s fu***ng go!” Ollie might have said had he been able to verbalize.

“Dude. It’s 7:15. I need a coffee.”

Saturday is typically a day to rest my body. I kept count of the ladders I climbed yesterday.

Eleven.

The perfect problem for a nearly 59-year-old man with a red football at his feet.

He allowed me half the cup of coffee before the ball was moved from the floor to my lap.

Ollie doesn’t have to do any such inventory.

I threw a spiral with the first pass and he leaped high. Caught the ball over his shoulder like Willie Mays at the Polo Grounds.

I counted them off.

When we got to 50 he brought the ball back slowly and picked it up and dropped it three times.

He knows that’s his trick that gets him five more throws.

I laughed.

Arm felt all right too.

“Going with the massage gun,” I told Ollie as he gathered up the ball and headed to the water bowl.

“How many times you going to do that this weekend?” Kathy asked as I returned to my coffee.

“The over/under is 700 catches,” I said. “Maybe a thousand if we incorporate the Juneteenth celebration.”’

And you wonder why I need to take inventory.

“Sleep when he sleeps,” Kathy said, and I laughed.

Good advice.

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