Kindness

So I got pissed off today while playing tennis again, and its times like these when I wonder why I like this team so much anyway. When I'm with the team, I feel more disrespected than I have ever felt in my life.

My fellow seniors treat my friends and me like trash. The underclassmen don't listen. It's total anarchy on this godforsaken team.

My friends and I got to the courts first, as usual. Today though, my friend filtered through the trash can to find a tennis ball so we could play before our coach got there, while I climbed over the rusty fence to look for one as well. The balls we found were both dead, but hers could still bounce so we played with that one.

In come some other teammates who demand that we give them a ball. So we did (we gave them the really bad one naturally because we wanted to play too). Then they complain and demand that they get the better one. What gives them the right to have the better ball that my friend found is beyond me. But they stole it from us when they got the chance. Then they laughed and didn't give a damn.

When we finally got the chance to take it back though, they started yelling again to give them back their ball. I said it was our ball to begin with, and they told us we sucked. To avoid any more conflict though, we switched to the other side and took the court behind them.

Then the one little freshman goes weeding through the trash too, and gets them a ball of their own. "I found one," she shouts.

"Ha, we found one," they sneer.

"Good. We found ours too," I replied indifferently.

Then one of the seniors turns around and shouts through the fence. "Fuck you."

So I said it back, for once.

"No, fuck you."

And that was the end of that. But later (though it's nothing new), when we stretch, the underclassmen talk and don't pay attention. Only two or three people at most out of twenty-one are counting. It's ridiculous, and I suppose that's why it sucks to have a team comprised of people who are already in their own cliques. To them, it's just another time to hangout with each other. It's not that I'm against laughing and having fun, but it's unbelievable that this disorganized, disparate team is actually getting the credit for being League Champs. I'm not saying that I suddenly want to start running perimeters and doing drills, but come on, a little respect for your captains, your upperclassmen at least please?

Sigh... I don't know what's wrong with this world. I want to tell them off, but it's really not worth it. There's now less than two weeks left, and we just need to keep our cool and finish up strong. I'll have that title I sought for five years, and I won't have to deal with them ever again.

On another note though, a cheerleader collapsed while doing a perimeter. As much as I'd like to sneer, my friend (one of the kinder, albeit ditsier, girls on the team) ran to get her water, and got help when she passed out.

It's not the only time she's done things like this. She ran out in a thunderstorm to get another girl's wallet that she thought she had lost the day before (even though there's a rather funny story to that), and today she was genuinely happy about what she did.

And it's people like that who still give me hope in the world. Knowing there's still kindness in people brings comfort to my soul.

But at the same time, it makes me wonder. Have you ever seen that commercial where a person does something nice for another person and someone else sees, which then sets off a chain reaction? I kind of wish the world was like that.

Though in sad, sad reality, part of me knows it never will be.