Fastest Round Ever

Somehow I ended up being the first caddie to arrive this morning. And somehow that translated into me getting the first loop. Sounds logical, but you'd be surprised. That never happens. I guess I've just been lucky lately.

The single I was paired with was an older gentleman with 16 clubs in his bag. The bag was pretty light, but I couldn't adjust the strap correctly and the bag kept sliding down and forward off of my shoulder all day. So that was a gem. But I wasn't on the course very long: we started at 8 am and finished at 10:27 am. Whew. For being over 60, this guy was fast. He admitted he wasn't a great golfer and said he made up for skill with speed. And he was right.

I think the only thing noteworthy on this loop was that I realized on the 17th hole that I had not made eye-contact with this player since the handshake on the first tee. Not sure why I thought of that on 17, but I definitely felt awkward around him until we finished.

He was so humble and shy. That's the only reason I can come up with for not looking this man in the face. Normally when I caddie for a player, they tell me what club they need, they throw their ball to me to clean, and they're not afraid to tell me when I'm doing something wrong. Well, this guy did none of those things. To compensate for his overtly considerate nature, I tried to one-up him. Because let's face it, a caddie is supposed to be humble. And this guy is not going to beat me at being humble when it's my freakin' job God dammit. So I worked extra hard and said almost nothing the whole round. And, subsequently, I didn't look him in the eye. I suppose I was trying to be as non-threatening as possible.

And the tip ended up reflecting his appreciation for my attitude. So far, it's the largest tip I've received on a single bag. So although I felt awkward and unnatural the whole time, I suppose it worked for him.

Now that I think about it, there was one other thing I'd like to mention about the round today: the maintenance crew. The grounds-crew at this course always treats me with respect. Every time I walk by one of them they tip their hat or nod their head. It's like I'm one of them. Just another humble servant working for the man. I suppose carrying these bags gives me a certain level of street cred. It feels pretty cool. The members at this club will say hello and try to be nice to these employees but the crew members always retort with the same generic "how are you today sir?" "I'm doing fine, sir."

But not with me. No superfluous smiles or masks. There's a look, a nod, and they continue with their work. I'm IN man. I'm IN. And it's a great feeling.

So what did I do to celebrate the good tip? Spend some of it. Not too much, but I had to do something. All I do every day is work, come home, read for awhile, eat, read some more, and then go to sleep. I needed to shake it up a little today. So I went to the movies.

I saw "The Interpreter." Now, I went into this film with pretty high expectations. Nicole Kidman is always a strong actress, and I had the privilege of suiting Sean Penn up with a pair of skis when I used to work in Lake Tahoe, so I was pretty psyched to go see him in action. On a scale of 1-10, I'd probably rate this around a 6. The dialogue was smart and crisp, but I feel like the writers were trying to get too many points across. You walked into the movie expecting to see one thing, and left with something else. I walked out of the theatre and I was like: wait a minute. Was somebody trying to assassinate somebody else in this movie? Or was this movie solely about the relationship between Sean and Nicole's characters?

Now, I understand the need for underlying levels of meaning so everyone can enjoy the movie, but the writers were trying to hit on too much. It was political, personal, spiritual, cultural and a little too contrived for my taste. I also saw pretty much everything before it happened. So although not a terrible movie, I just didn't think it was worth the $6.25 I paid. For a movie spending most of it's time focusing on the relationship between Sean and Nicole, I would've liked to see something happen between them at the end. But no. They can't even follow through with that. I guess that's what I really feel about the movie. It just didn't follow through on any of it's plot-lines, so I was never able to fully commit to a particular character. I guess that's what you get when 3 writers work on a script. Too many conflicts of ideas.

Sorry. Just had to rant about that for a minute.