Week 106 TOP STORY:

So, I hit another lady playing tennis. Bruised her. Hit her in the shin - and this time it was on purpose. I mean, she was beating me 4-1. Besides, my serve went in, and it wasn't my fault she couldn't get out of the way in time. In fact, that's kind of the point of serving fast. As I said, I was down 4-1.

I love competition.

I was at a birthday party in Montclair on Friday. Our hostess used to work for Outward Bound and knows all these ice breaker party games. One of them, and I'm sure you've done this before, is the one where you pass a grapefruit around a circle without using your hands. The way you grip the grapefruit is by applying pressure from your chin to your chest. In this manner, by invading each other's personal space, the grapefruit is passed around the circle. Mind you, while these fruit exchanges are taking place, you're racing the red team, and if the grapefruit drops you have to start back at the beginning.

Now, innocent little me was not intending to make a big competition out of this game, but my good pal Annah is standing next to me assuring me that this is no joke, THIS IS WAR, and I better not slow her down.

So the grapefruit begins to make its way around with the circle and when it gets to me, I am expecting a simple exchange.

Sorry.

The woman passing the grapefruit to me is a little shorter than I am, which makes it awkward. I get in there and take the fruit, except I can't get a good grip on it. The grapefruit inevitably begins sliding, ever so slowly, down her body.

To drop the grapefruit is death, because your team has to start over from the beginning. Annah, I know, will kill me if this happens, so I persist. The grapefruit drops between this poor woman's breasts, and my face is right in there, trying to get a grip on the damn grapefruit. The fruit drops lower, to her belly button, and lower, to wonderland, and, well, I'm not a quitter.

To the casual observer, I looked like a simple pervert. To my teammates, I was both an inspiration and an embarrassment. After lots of wiggling, the grapefruit is now on Mrs. Robinson's thigh, and finally, right before it rolls off her knee, I get a grip on the pesky little thing. Of course, by that time, there's really no one to pass it to, because they're all dying laughing and the other team has long since beaten us.

So I did the gentlemanly thing and apologized to the woman for taking so long. She replied that it wasn't so bad and makes a joke about how glad she is that her son (my age) is in the other room, not watching.

Are we ready for round 2? our host asks. Sure, we say. And I'm sure I have learned my lesson, and will not repeat my mistakes, but I do, to the delight of the crowd, and history repeats itself, and I find myself, once again, buried in the decolletage of someone who is old enough to have dated Eisenhower.

After the party's over, my roommate Jen, who watched all this with great humor, asked me why I persisted in molesting a perfectly nice fifty year old woman after it was obvious that I had no chance of gripping the fruit. Why, Jen asks me, didn't I just let it hit the floor?

I thought for a moment and then I realized I had no answer for that. The thought never entered my mind, Not once. DROP THE GRAPEFRUIT? No way - that was the cardinal rule. We'd have lost the race. The truth was, I didn't notice the poor woman's breasts or crotch on shapely thigh until after the game was over. During the game, I was concentrating on winning. You might say I was victorious.  ¶ 10:07 PM