Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Another week working in Milwaukee, and not a lot of stimulating blogging material, or at least nothing that my tired wits are picking up on.

It’s not all work this week, however.  On Friday, my client is flying a group of us up to Mackinac Island for a round of … wait for it … GOLF!

I’ve never been a golfer.  I play once a year, if that, with my parents and brothers when we get together, and it’s an agreeable way to while away an afternoon with them.  Our family didn’t golf when I lived at home.  My dad had a sort of antipathy to the country-club ethos, and would say, “golf is the only game where you hit a ball and have to chase it yourself!”  My parents took the game up after, I believe, all of us were out of the house - they’re born-again golfers.  I’m not sure what sucked my brothers in, just as I’m not aware of when they came by their other execrable habits.  As for myself, it looked from the outside like something I would become obsessed with - multiply the number of clubs in a bag by about 17 ways to hit with each (15 bad, only one or two good) and you have a recipe for alarming and untreatable mental illness.  And, at the time, it just wasn’t a vigorous enough activity for me to spend that much time on.  It helps that Seattle isn’t the kind of town (as Milwaukee seems to be) where you have to golf in order to do business.

It’s against this backdrop that I will essay the links on Friday.  My client took me to his country club Wednesday and let me practice a bit at the driving range.  In retrospect, I’m not sure I view this as a kindness.  Most businesses need a state permit or have links to the Bush administration to create the sort of muddy moonscape, devoid of any living thing, that I created at the tee, a stripmine that only the merciful onset of a Wisconsin winter will begin to heal.  And the seemingly random barrage of balls I hit defied orthopedic or mathematical explanation.  I was hoping I hadn’t hurt anyone in the areas out of my view where my hits seemed to inexorably gravitate, and wondered if my client’s D&O insurance would cover any resulting legal difficulties.

So, pity the foursome that draws me tomorrow.  Don’t know if we’re playing 9 or 18 holes.  I understand that the island itself has its charms, with no automobiles and quaint architecture.  Perhaps I’d be better off grabbing a bicycle and riding around it.  Maybe after the first nine, my partners will pool their money and rent me one.  I’ll be back with pictures.  Gird your stomachs.