Kicking and screaming
ArtisHENDERSON sandydays@floridaweekly.com
My friend Ken shares his life's wisdom in easy-to-digest parables. One anecdote tells about a woman that couldn't find a date.

"She was very lonely," he said. "She thought something must be wrong with her because guys never asked her out." So, Ken asked her, "Where do you go to meet guys?"

Ken says the woman thought about it, then admitted that she really didn't get out much. As a matter of fact, she went straight home from work most days, and her weekends were spent alone in front of the TV.

"The key to getting a date," said Ken, "is actually going out there and finding one."

He's right, of course. But anyone that's been single in Fort Myers knows finding someone in this city is easier said than done.

Personally, I've tried most of the major standbys for single folks in Lee County: coffee shops, grocery stores, and, yes, even match.com. Other than a few shy smiles and one long discussion about tomatoes with the produce manager at Publix, I've come up emptyhanded. That is, until recently.

The World Adult Kickball Association has come to Lee County and, from the looks of it, every good looking single person under 40 has joined its ranks. There are twelve teams (including my own third-ranked Dunder Mifflin) and over 100 players. That's a lot of dating options.

When I first set foot on the field for the inaugural game, I was impressed by the crowd of attractive, universally athletic guys. The girls, too, had a lot going on.

"Do the uniforms include short shorts?" my friend Hal asked when I told him about the league. "If so, let me know. I am always up for some ogling."

No uniforms, I told him (only the team t-shirts are mandatory), but there are enough short shorts and bare legs to make it worth signing up.

The best part of kickball - like any adult co-ed team athletics - is the postgame beer drinking. The Fort Myers league has its own sponsoring bar, and when the games are done, all the onfield ogling turns to face-to-face mingling over frothy pitchers of Blue Moon and Bud Light.

Flush with a 4-0 victory from the first game, our team made it's way to Ron Dao's on McGregor, triumphantly shouting our Dunder Mifflin cheer, "That's what she said" (fans of the comedy series The Office will get this one).

The bar was packed with kickball t-shirts, and our black jerseys swam in a sea of kelly green, yellow, and even pink. I grabbed a plastic cup of beer and stepped into the line-up for a flip-cup game. A kickballer with wavy black hair and green eyes extended his hand across the table.

"I'm Rob," he said. We shook, both smiling.

Next to me, my teammate Michelle whispered in my ear. "See that

guyoverthere?"She ges- tured across the bar to another player in a dark shirt. " H e asked me about the single girls on our team. Says he thinks you all are pretty cute."

He was pretty cute, too, and he laughed when he caught us whispering.

Like that, the dating options in Fort Myers suddenly did not seem so slim. All it took was a little getting out of the house (and some kickball to boot).

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