SANDWICH PIGGIES

So Monday, I got a call from my friend Shaz as I’m cruising along the road toward Kilmore.  I was all geared up for water aerobics and gym, but young Shaz was about to change all that.

Two hours later, I found myself on a tennis court in Flowerdale, filling in for one of Pyalong’s team members.

I forgot how much fun Monday ladies comp could be.

Forget the fact that I was dressed for the gym and water aerobics (with my bathers on underneath my clothes!); I was having an awesome time!

As we sat down to lunch after the match, one of the Flowerdale ladies placed a platter of beautiful looking sandwiches on the table, and I smiled.  I was immediately taken back to an incident I like to refer to as ‘Sandwichgate’.

Many years ago, I was playing in a Monday comp for a local club.  I was relatively new to the club, and it was my turn to make sandwiches for lunch. 

Now, anyone that is not familiar with the etiquette of Monday Ladies tennis, should know that when the home team provides lunch for the visiting opposition ladies, one of the ‘plates’ they provide must be sandwiches. You can be all fancy with your cakes and savouries, but you must have sandwiches.  That was the case in this districts association anyway.

So I bowl in with my platter of sandwiches on this particular Monday morning, place them in the fridge, help set up the tables, chairs and courts with my team mates, and off we go to play.

When I came back in after our match to help set the food out and organise cuppas, to my horror, half of the sandwiches were gone.  I had made twenty rounds of sandwiches!  That was like two sandwiches per lady, with a few rounds spare (my sambo’s are awesome, so I make lots).

Fucken HALF were gone. 

I turned to my team captain and said ‘Half the sandwiches have been eaten… who the fuck has eaten the sandwiches?’

The captain looked over my shoulder at the opposition team members, and looked back at me.  ‘The other team will have eaten them.  They do it all the time.’

‘You’re fucking kidding me?’

‘Nope.  They are known for it.’

I couldn’t believe it.  They had fucken pigged out on the sandwiches through the morning, leaving us insufficient food for lunch.  I couldn’t believe it! 

How fucken rude!  You don’t go into the opposing teams kitchen; into their fridge, and help yourself to their sandwiches!  These women had eaten the majority of our lunch!

I was fucken furious!  ‘I can’t believe they’ve done that!  I’ve not enough sandwiches for lunch now!’ I knew how anal some ladies could be about their fucken sandwiches at ladies comp, and not having enough food was akin to murdering a puppy. 

‘A lot of clubs complain about them because of this…’ one of my other team members said.

‘Why doesn’t someone tell them not to do it?’ I asked, but my girls just shrugged. 

‘Are we supposed to supply morning tea in this comp as well?’ I asked, not 100% sure of the rules.

‘No,’ the captain replied.  ‘Not at all.  It’s them.  They always eat the sandwiches between sets.’

‘Did they ask anyone if they could have a sandwich, or did they just help themselves?’ I asked.

The girls looked at each other questioningly.  ‘No, they just helped themselves…’

So, I waltzed out into the clubroom and placed the half empty platter in the middle of the table, thinking ‘you fucken sandwich piggies have had enough to eat already!’

‘Is that all the sandwiches you have?’

‘Excuse me?’ I said.  Surely I didn’t hear them correctly. 

‘Do you have any more sandwiches?’ she repeated.

‘More? Are you kidding me?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve supplied twenty rounds of sandwiches for lunch today, and your team has eaten half of them already.  This is all that’s left.  No.  I don’t have any more.’

‘We get hungry between the sets, and like something to eat.  You should have provided more for lunch.’ she said haughtily.

‘More? What?  Twenty rounds aren’t enough?’ I was astonished, and looked over to the kitchen where my teammates were watching the scene unfold; well clear of the fireworks.  ‘You cannot be serious?  You have helped yourself to the food in our fridge, without our permission, and eaten half of everyone’s lunch, and you expect more?’

The woman frowned.  ‘We are the visiting team, and we expect to have food if we get hungry.’

‘If you get hungry between sets, you can do what every other player in the association does; you bring your own morning tea.’ I snapped.  ‘We bring our own fruit and rolls and chocolate to eat between sets; you can too.  How dare you expect morning tea as well as lunch, and how dare you be so rude as to help yourself in such a way! There are people at this table that will miss out because of you.’ I barked, and returned to the kitchen.

Fuck me!  Fucken sandwich piggies!

No surprise that they didn’t hang around long after that match.

Little did I know that I had thrown a fair amount of fuel on a fire that had been smouldering through the association for many, many years.

Little did I know, that it was about to turn into a firestorm.