Dart Tournament

It is a fateful day when I agree to play in a Couple's dart tournament with Dart Guy. I think I was under the influence of too much sleep, a rare happening in our household. So here we are, entering the smoke-filled Dart Bar (it's like Texas--a whole other country), and I shutter seeing a large crowd of dart-playing connoisseurs milling around tables littered with all manner of dart paraphanalia. I live with one, but, even so, I feel decidedly inferior holding onto three darts and stepping up to the line to take my first throw. That's when I decided I need a drink. Or a few drinks. So I gulp some wine and try and stay near the "tip" case, which, unfortunately, is not a case containing a nicely prepared notebook filled with an array of helpful dart hints; but, instead is the case filled with extra plastic tips for when one or more errant dart throws creates a sensation all across the bar by violently slicing the short, black tip of your dart away from the steel shaft. My darts are a little wild today, or every day, to be honest, and they rush toward the electronic boards like rogue missiles destined to place me in war crime tribunals. I have a particularly disturbing image in my mind: me standing before a panel of somber, dart experts that deluge me with all sorts of terrifying, hard questions--Did you practice for today? Do you want to win as bad as Bruce Jenner wanted to win the gold in his hey day? Can you add numbers quickly in your head to determine the proper target on the board? At this point I begin to stutter and stammer and wish for a starbucks to wisk me away to lovely esspresso land. I go outside and take a sip of my Frappacino in the car. We lose our first match, since I cannot decide what end of the dart should be pointed toward the board. Dart Guy pretends that I do not frustrate him., and I am reminded of why I married him. He puts our team on his shoulder for the second match, dragging us to a win. His throws are graceful, perfectly aimed miraculous events. Five hours after this all began, we lose our last match. Though I have not really performed any great athletic feats here, I am ready for bed. We pick up Destructo and Spitfire from Grandma's, where they have created the world's largest House of Clutter, and enthusiastically enjoyed it. And that's the end of my bi-annual Dart Adventure. I leave the real dart playing up to Dart Guy, for which I think, he breathes a great sigh of relief.