No basketball in midtown

My brother-in-law has always loved playing basketball.

 

But now he lives in a Hong Kong neighbourhood where opportunities for a pick-up game are somewhere between slim and none.

 

He is visiting Toronto for a few weeks and wants to play.

 

So, from where he is staying near the upscale Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood, we set out yesterday to find a ball.

 

We didn't need a $100 leather ball or one endorsed by the NBA or one blessed by LeBron himself. Just a regulation-size basketball. Shouldn't be hard, you would think, in a city that is home to an NBA franchise.

 

We headed to one of the biggest sports stores in the area. It has the word "Sport" in its name.

 

I weaved through the tables and racks displaying $100 T-shirts and could not find a basketball. I asked a guy wearing a name tag. Eager to please but completely confounded, he panicked. "Maybe we have one or two here ..." he stammered and walked around the store wide-eyed until finally he found a manager who confirmed that, in fact, this sports store does not sell basketballs.

 

Like at so many "athletics" stores these days, a lifestyle was for sale, not basic equipment.

 

On Yonge, I drove from Eglinton north to the end of the retail strip between Lawrence and York Mills. Maybe I missed something, but I could not find one store that sold a football or basketball or baseball glove.

 

I drove back south and dropped my brother-in-law at the Yonge and Eglinton mall. I didn't know of any sports store in there but wanted to be thorough.

 

He found a ball at a toy store.

No shorts

My legs are pasty white, making my leg hair look more coarse and dark than it actually is.

I would need several consecutive days in the sun and a tub of baby oil to darken the skin and bleach the hair. I don't have that kind of time.

I could eliminate part of the problem with a razor, like one of those swim or bike enthusiasts. But I don't particularly need to be more aerodynamic. Plus, as a matter of principle, I will not shave body hair. (It's a moral stand I can easily take because I am not gorilla-hairy. Like, I don't have ear hair, or back hair that you can see from a distance. Yet.)

So I wear jogging pants at the gym.

Even though it's humid (and getting more humid, it seems, each week) and there is only one rotating fan to cool the room containing 20 treadmills, ellipticals and other machines, and I am sweating all out of proportion to how much I exercise, I will not wear shorts.

I am sure I would be more comfortable, could run longer, keep from overheating and getting soaked by the rivers of sweat running down my back and in my eyes, if I cared less.

But being sopping wet and near cardiac arrest is a small price for vanity, right?