“Hey, Dad, do you wanna go play some footie?” I asked, smiling and twirling our soccer ball in my hands.

“Sure,” my dad replied. “Why don’t you head out to the car, and I’ll be right there?”

“OK.”

And, in the space of a few minutes, we neared the park where we sometimes played soccer. My dad parked on the forlorn pavement, and I opened the door and hopped out.

“Oh, cool, they have the goals up,” my dad commented. It was sometimes hit or miss if the park put the mini goals up on the field.

I nodded and tossed him the ball, jogging to the far goal. I wanted to work on my goalie skills, so my dad would be playing striker. We didn’t warm up—we never did—we just started playing.

I blocked a couple of the goals, conceded a couple more, then swapped with my dad. I was not the best striker by a long shot, but one does what one can. When I started getting winded and my dad was rested, we swapped again. The sun was lowering its yellow face under the blanket of the horizon, so we only had about 10 to 15 minutes more.

My dad ran at me with the ball and shot it from about 10 feet away. I didn’t have much of a time catching it with my foot. My dad turned, walking back to the other goal. Where did he think he was going?

He didn’t realize I was running with the ball before I was running by him.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, laughing.

He wasn’t able to catch me as I had the headstart, and the ball was soon in the back of the net.

“Well done,” he chuckled. “I didn’t realize you were going to run all the way up here!”

“Well, you should’ve been more prepared,” I teased.

Hmm, that sounds familiar… I blocked the ball, but I didn’t lax off like I could’ve. My dad missed the goal, and he turned and walked away. One was prepared, the other wasn’t. Both had the choice to lax off. Hm.