Losing to a 6-year old

This last Saturday, I (Dad) took our 6-year old daughter to the park to play a game of Daddy-Daughter one-on-one baseball. It was quite entertaining… but for different reasons, depending on which side of the game you were on. This child happens to be very head-strong and very competitive. In her mind, she has never lost at anything. And she is ok with changing the rules if that's what it takes to win, but only if it’s going to benefit her. Since this was our first ever Daddy-Daughter baseball game, I couldn’t do too much spoiling of her wishes… I'm not going to just let her win, but I'm also not going to play too hard because let's face it - she's a little girl. Here’s how it went.

Pre-game

6-year old makes up all rules before the game starts. This was a strategic move on her part, because if she created the rules, then obviously she could later change the rules to her benefit, right? This is how life normally works, as I understand it so far. Rules for today's game are: we are counting strikes (although no limit was initially put in place); home plate was a patch of clovers right next to the big tree; when you get a hit, you have to run to the 4th sprinkler head toward center field then back to home plate; if there is a hit, the pitcher has to get the ball and tag home plate before the runner gets there. That’s it. Play ball!

Inning #1

6-year old in all her benevolence allows me to bat first. She strikes me out on 3 pitches that are not even within 8 feet of home plate. Did I mention it was pretty windy and we played with a nerf ball? The tough part for me – I didn’t even swing at any of them. “You’re out, Dad.” Change sides.

6-year old is up to bat. She swings at anything and doesn’t watch the ball very well. Should be easy for me to strike her out. Especially in the wind. After 3 strikes (over the plate and she swung), 6-year old declares that she is still up to bat. After another 3 strikes, 6-year old says, “Nope, you’re still not up to bat yet.” After another 3 strikes, 6-year old declares it’s Break Time. So we go drink some water in the shade for a minute, after which she says she is still up to bat.
After a few more pitches, finally a hit! Dad retrieves the ball and tags home plate waaaay before 6-year old. 6-year old indicates that Dad touched the wrong patch of clovers, so she scored a run and is now leading 1-0. Dad says, “WHAT?!?!?! IT’S THIS PATCH OF CLOVERS RIGHT HERE!!!! REMEMBER, THE ONE RIGHT NEXT TO THE TREE?” 6-year old replies that was the wrong one and it’s this other one about 12 feet away from the original. Dad lets this one slide... he finally gets her out on the next hit by touching ever patch of clovers in the vicinity before she gets close. Change sides.

Inning #2

After 12 unreachable pitches, Dad BOMBS a tennis-serve swing into right center. While running to sprinkler #4, he takes a detour to follow 6-year old after the ball. Right before getting to the ball, 6-year old declares that the ball went too far, so “you’re out, Dad.” Dad declares there’s no such rule in baseball, then picks up 6-year old and the ball and runs back to home plate carrying both. 6-year old indicates that there’s no picking up other players in baseball, so “you’re out, Dad.” Dad fights back with, “oh yeah? Well what about all those collisions? Surely picking someone else up is no big deal…” 6-year old’s determined response is, “Well, in OUR baseball, you’re out.” Change sides.

6-year old chews out Dad for throwing one pitch over her head – “Dad, just remember. You have to throw the ball short, because I’m short.” After a hit, 6-year old scores a run on the “change the home plate patch of clovers” trick again. 2-0. Dad was at home plate nearly a full 10 seconds before 6-year old, but clearly 6-year old deserved to score. Dad allows it. After another hit, Dad pulls the “touch every patch of clovers” solution again to get an out. Change sides.

Inning #3

Dad strikes out on 3 pitches, while only swinging at one. Again, the other two pitches are more than 8 feet from home plate. What a bunch of crap – we need a non-6-year old umpire. Change sides.

After 3 nothing-but-air swinging-for-the-fence strikes, 6-year old now decides that now would be a good time to stop counting strikes. About 7 strikes later, 6-year old gets a hit and scores a run. 3-0. Break Time. While coming out of the Break, 6-year old takes an air of benevolence and allows Dad to hit. Change sides.

Inning #4

Dad hammers one into deep center and bolts for sprinkler #4. With 6-year old nowhere close to the ball yet, Dad decides to run to sprinkler #11 in deep left center, about twice as far from home plate as his hit. Running super-fast, Dad barely makes it to home plate before 6-year old. 6-year old promptly declares Dad out because he ran to some extra sprinklers. Change sides.

6-year old hits a dribbler into shallow left. Dad runs to scoop it up, but notices 6-year old didn’t go all the way to sprinkler #4. “Hey, you didn’t go to the right sprinkler!!!” 6-year old decides now is a good time to implement a new rule, “Well, in OUR baseball, you can run to whatever sprinkler you want.” What the heck?!?!?! Wasn’t Dad ruled out 30 seconds ago for running to EXTRA sprinklers? 4-0. Dad is fed up, so he starts throwing the ball a little bit faster. 6-year old reminds Dad that we’re not counting strikes anymore. Dad tags 6-year old out after a weak grounder to the pitcher. Change sides.

Inning #5

Dad is semi-ticked off. He hits one right back at the pitcher. Pitcher doesn’t know where to find the ball after it ricochets off her foot. Dad runs to the sprinkler #1 and then back to home plate, yelling the whole way, “Remember, we can run to whatever sprinkler we want!!!” 6-year old decides to let him have a run finally. 4-1. Dad is still semi-ticked off. He now nails one into deep left and scores a run easily. 4-2. Again, but into deep right field. 4-3. One more time, into deep left again. 4-4. Now, 6-year old is ticked off. Dad hits one more long one into center and scores another run. 4-5. 6-year old is starting to smoke at the ears. Dad grounds one into right field, and just before he is about to step on home plate, he gets pelted in the back of the head with the ball. “You’re out, Dad!!!” Dad allows it because he is impressed with 6-year old’s accurate throw. Although Dad is a little dumbfounded at why she was so accurate now that's she is throwing a ball at his head in a fit of rage and not when pitching to him. Change sides.

6-year old gets a hit into left field which Dad chases down fairly quickly, realizing 6-year old is only going to sprinkler #1. Before 6-year old is able to step on home plate, Dad throws the ball at 6-year old’s back and says, “Gotcha! You’re out!” 6-year old responds, “No Dad, grown-ups can’t throw the ball at kids, just kids get to throw the ball at grown-ups. 5-5.” Dad mumbles something about all these rule changes and how it’s making him mad. 6-year old then gets a weak hit and Dad gets her out easily. Change sides.

Inning #6

Dad can’t believe all this garbage, so he scores 3 quick runs on deep hits. Feeling good with that lead, he acts like he forgot which clover patch was home plate (honestly, who could really remember anyway?) and lets 6-year old get him out. 5-8. Change sides.

6-year old gets out on a weak grounder. However, she comes up with a brilliant idea – “Ok, we’re switching scores now. I’m winning 8-5.” Dad, utterly dumbfounded at the trouncing he is receiving from 6-year old in the Rule Changing Department, responds, “But, but, we can’t just switch scores…” 6-year old has a response to that, as well, “In OUR baseball, we switch scores now. Let's go get ice cream, I'm tired of baseball.”

…and that was how 6-year old won in a huge come-from-behind last minute victory. Dad has learned a lot about being a good father: 6-year old always wins. Dad just doesn’t know how she can sleep at night.

When One-Upping Someone Just Isn't Enough

I’ve never been a fan of people trying to one-up me.

Really, just let me brag for a second. If I want to say that I’m really happy about this amazing shot I made in a basketball game last week, just let me talk about it for a minute. You don’t need to feel like you have to say you made a better shot. In fact, I really don’t care what shot you made. I wanna just talk about me for a minute. We can get to you when I’m done, and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, as long as you’re not one-upping me.

That’s the normal scenario when you meet a one-upper. It’s always a competition. It’s not about us each being happy for each other… it’s about us being happy for them, no matter whose turn it is to talk, because they are better than us.

Ok, so none of this is new to anyone reading. But a guy I met a while ago might have figured out how to take “one-upping” to a whole new level (or “to a whole ‘nother level”, depending on how red your neck is).

To set the stage, there were four of us in a conference room at work, just waiting for one more to show up so our meeting could begin. To break the silence as we waited, I asked if anyone had heard the new U2 album yet, although no one had. I mentioned that it just may be the first album I’ve bought in years, if it’s even half-way decent. One of the other guys chimes in with some comment about how he bought his first album of the year the week before. Pretty normal conversation so far, right? (Full disclosure – I don’t consider this one-upping, since he was putting himself in a situation where he was not exceedingly more radical than I am).

Then, just as he finished his comment, another guy, who was visiting and whom I have nick-named “The Tripler, King of the One-Uppers” for reasons to be discussed later, blurted out, “I bought 10 new albums, just last week!”

Whoa!!! No way, man!!! You are the coolest!!! Talk about diarrhea of the mouth… well, the rest of us found this to be extremely intriguing, so we began to question him on where he buys his music (“online, man, it’s all online now”), whether he really meant ten ALBUMS or if he really meant ten SONGS (“albums, man, full albums”), if this was a normal habit for him (“yep, I’d say about ten albums per week is my average”), if his wife was ok with his insane spending habit (“of course she is! She doesn’t wear the pants!”), and if there is enough music on earth to keep up with his spending level (“yeah man, I’ll never run out of awesome stuff to listen to”).

As we sat there in shock, eventually the conversation moved on to my antiquated iPod, which I bought in 2006 and haven’t replaced because I’m cheap. Hey it still works, why replace it? Well, another guy pipes up with a comment about how he just replaced his, so now between him and his wife, they have three iPods in the house and it is just too much for them to keep organized and updated etc etc yada yada.

Then, The Tripler jumps in with a doosie, “Between me and my wife, we have nine iPods.”

WHAT?!?!?! Who is your money manager? For that matter, who is your iPod manager? Has Ikea begun making an iPod Shelf yet for people like you (they could call it “The Steve”)?

The rest of us were so shocked, we weren’t sure how to proceed. I began laughing, sort of a snorty, you-gotta-be-joking laugh mixed with a “good one! That’s definitely a knee-slapper” laugh. To my snort-laugh, he turned to me, and with a sober look on his face, said, “Seriously, dude.” I didn’t know how to respond, and I still don’t. I guess he won that conversation.

... so in case you ever really need more than just a normal one-up, you know what to do. Just triple them all!