It's all a Matter of Perspective

I was engaged recently, in one of my favorite pastimes - relaxing. I was also watching some YouTube videos. I don't usually do that while relaxing, but this time, and given the circumstances, the video title and description sounded intriguing. In it, a man - a pro shop owner, I am guessing - discusses his top ten list of items that people new to tennis or, like myself, have returned to the game after some significant, or not, period of time had passed, buy and then almost immediately regret their purchase (apparently those of us who played during the tennis Golden Age, left for one reason or another, and have lately found our way back, are a sizable group).

not my pile of racquets

Anyway, the top ten list included things you would expect like racquets and strings, but other things like shoes and tennis balls. I was sort of relieved to realize that none of the things on his list were things that I had mistakenly, or intentionally, bought over the past couple months. That is, until he got to the bags - you know, those things you carry your racquets in. Used to be that tennis racquets came with a cover, but at some point in the 2000s, maybe, manufacturer's decided they didn't need to make covers anymore, people weren't using them anyway and they were just taking up space in the landfills. So they stopped making racquet covers. Not only did the manufacturer's get to save a couple bucks, but it forced people to buy bags, like the three-pak bag I bought for my new racquets and, ultimately, fill them with new racquets.

Anyway (again), and to my surprise the three-pak bag, like my new one with the big HEAD logo on it to match the racquets within (of course) made the top ten list in the video. It seems a bag that holds three, or four if you really squeeze them in, is not big enough for the modern day less-than-pro court player, and they tend to get returned for the larger capacity six-pak, and larger bags. Am I under-equipped, I began to wonder? before remembering that I have... how many bikes!

At least carrying six racquets around would be a lot easier than carrying six bikes around.

When I bought my latest racquet, and mentioning that thirty-five or so years had passed since last I had one strung, or swung one in anger, I imagined the pro-shop guy saying, are you sure this is the right racquet at this time? You don't understand I'd say, I'm a cyclist, a good pair of cycling shoes comes with a heftier price tag than this pretty top-flite piece of molded carbon. And I realized it might not be so hard to fill that six-pak bag after all. It's all a matter of perspective.

not my pile of bikes