Love Hurts

When I was six years old my parents bought me a tiny, cuddly hamster that I named Fuzzy. The lil' beige critter quickly captured my attention and my heart. I would giggle as he climbed up my sleeve and around my neck, even if his tiny padded feet were a bit scratchy.  It tickled me to watch Fuzzy's tiny pink tongue massage the nipple of his over-sized water bottle. Sprinting in his tiny hamster wheel, then slowing, then sprinting again--Fuzzy held me rapt in his miniature hamster world. He could hold so much food in his cheeks! Even his tiny hamster turds looked cute. In short, I loved Fuzzy. But not just a tiny bit; I loved him a lot. If any of you doubt that it is possible to love something to death and do not wish to be swayed from your opinion, read no further.


In an hour most grim I literally loved Fuzzy to death.

It started innocently enough. I loved to carry Fuzzy in my hands, you see. Mom would often remind me not to hold him too tight. But if I didn't, Fuzzy would get the best of me and scurry away. So hold him tight, I did. I would squeeze him to make sure he stayed safely in my control. This was fine until we noticed a tiny pink pouch hanging out of Fuzzy's butt. I didn't pay much attention to it and continued to love and squeeze my little best friend. A day passed. The pink butt pouch grew bigger. Then another day passed, the pouch bulging larger still. Mom grew alarmed and begged me to let him stay in his cage. But her pleas were in vain.

Rather than allowing me to squeeze the remains of what I believe to be Fuzzy's colon out of his butt, Mom declared a hamster emergency. Fuzzy was dying. Instead of throwing him over the backyard fence, or quickly whacking him with a 2 x 4, Mom took Fuzzy to the vet and paid to have him euthanized. Fuzzy's tiny life was over. I had loved him to death.


I put Fuzzy's tiny stiff body in a shoebox. His face was blank and his relatively enormous butt pouch had begun to shrivel. Tears were shed and a eulogy was spoken as we laid him in his final resting place--in the backyard, beneath one of the rusty legs of our swing set.


It would be a while before I was allowed another pet. But when I finally got a second hamster, he was promptly named Fuzzy and carried around constantly in my older and gentler, but no less caring hands. By the time I was ten I had raised and named five successive hamsters Fuzzy.


RIP my tiny little friends.






-The Flying Dutchman-

Sipping from the World Cup

I played soccer for five, maybe six seasons as a kid. I was well-liked and I could sprint like a champ, but my skill set consisted mostly of jumping up and down when we scored a goal (perhaps the first indicator I would become the Flying Dutchman blogger.) Luckily my team, the Hunter Knights, later the Skyhawks, were an excellent team and I always felt like a winner even if I wasn’t exactly a contributing member. I have a shelf full of plastic trophies proving my worth as a player.

I wore my soccer uniform proudly. I liked putting the styrofoam shinguards under my tall, thick socks. My nylon shirt was tucked dutifully into my short shorts, per league requirements. I remember feeling like my legs were chunky--this was before I understood that soccer legs were a thing--but I felt pretty sharp when the whole team gathered in our matching gear. 

If you looked beyond the smart uniforms though, the eccentricities of prepubescent kids emerged, often to painful effect. There was Danny, the pudgy one. His undersized jersey stretched over his belly like the cooked skin of a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Then there was Angela, the clumsy one. Any time the ball came near her, she tripped on it like it was her job. She wore glasses that constantly slipped down her nose then launched onto the field when she inevitably fell. To her credit though, she played aggressively. And finally there was Timmy, the weirdo. In the strangest pattern of OCD behaviors, he would remove the wedgie from his tiny butt with one hand followed by the other, then lick each hand as if it needed to be cleaned afterward. Timmy's father was the assistant coach, and I frequently got the impression that Timmy wasn't exactly the apple of dad's eye. In fact, I think little Two-hand Timmy was an embarrassment.

I'm sure I had my own quirks on the field, but I don't know what those would be. I'm probably remembered as 'the girly one' or 'the fast one with no other discernible soccer skills'. I played goalie for a while but don't recall saving any games. I do know I could kick the ball almost to the other goal post with my thick legs. I also played 'sweeper' but to this day, I don't know what the sweeper's job is. For two seasons I played Forward. I am certain that I felt more necessary than I actually was. Perhaps there were a few passes that resulted in goals, but mostly I just ran a lot and tried to look open.

But in international football I never quite understood why fans riot, why players kill themsleves for botching a game, or how national reputations are formed or destroyed at the word GOOOOOOAL. Then I spent some time outside the U.S. during the 1998 World Cup.

In Guatemala, working as a missionary, I had the chance to experience futbol fever first-hand. On any given day I could walk down the street and hear the game in every house, bar, and tienda. There was a fire, a true passion for the sport that bled into the streets. You see, this is a game that any kid from any country in the world can play. Most don’t even use a ball. There is an equality that doesn’t exist in any other sport. Every kid has a chance to be Pele.

But in a country where kids can, and often do, play several sports, soccer tends to get the shaft. It’s not America’s Favorite Past-time. (Snore.) It takes patience to watch. (It can end in a tie?!) It doesn’t have Lebron James. (Maybe that’s for the best.) But as Team U.S.A. continues to defy expectations abroad, so does football itself here at home. More people are watching. Maybe it has to do with globalization or the internet. Whatever it is, America is finally catching the fever. And so am I.

I get it. I understand the mania. Perhaps it’s in my blood. The Dutch are famously zany in their fanatacism. And the Dutch team? --it’s been good for decades. Football is an integral part of my national identity. The Dutch side, I mean. I look forward to the time that it becomes a part of the American national identity as well.

So, in the meantime, if you’re afraid of soccer because you don’t know the rules (who determines how long the match is???), or you don’t get the appeal, go ahead, watch a game. Take a big gulp from the World Cup... You might just find yourself rioting with the rest of the world.

-The Flying Dutchman-