Athlete label a new one on columnist

I was recently called something I have never before been called: An athlete.

If you really knew me, you'd know nothing has gone against the core of the entirety of the history of my existence like this since the day a co-worker held up a large box and asked if I liked corn dogs.

I hate corn dogs.

And I danced a jig the last day in high school when I finished my physical education career. My favorite after-school sport was going home after school.

Nothing against the athletically inclined, I've just always known it wasn't anything I was blessed enough to possess.

Well, I did like floor hockey growing up. Which made for maybe one week out of the school year I looked forward to gym class. And I think dodgeball gets a bum rap in today's culture, but we did play with softer orbs than the movies ever show.

But these brief moments of enjoyment were always overshadowed by such activities as — shudder — rope climbing. I never got all that high up, but climbing was a peach compared to the most inane, insane physical education requirement: Swinging on the ropes, when we'd have to take a running start and hop onto a rope — which I couldn't climb, remember — and let 'er fly.

Even typing up that memory dredges up the urge to crawl under my desk and roll into a fetal position.

I'm a good person; what does it matter whether or not I can swing on a rope? And yet, back then and probably even now, it matters a great deal to some people.

I, for the most part, figured the opportunity to be a sports star had passed me by, save for the occasional walk to get my exercise or a quick run to chase after a departing snack goods delivery truck.

I can be extremely fast given the proper motivation.

These brief situations aside, I fully embraced my inner couch potato wholeheartedly.

Then came a recent get-together amongst co-workers, which included a makeshift volleyball game, using an oversized ball and a precariously placed net.

At first, I experienced a resurgence of the classic P.E. class phenomenon, scientifically named "the willies," wondering how much these people I have come to admire and respect would think of me once they saw how lame my game is.

But either I went to school with a bunch of genius athletes or I'm actually better than I long have suspected, because I think I held my own. Sure, mistakes were made, like spiking way too hard and sending the ball out of bounds, but I wasn't the only one who made them.

Then, the next day, I heard there had been a discussion in which the words "Matthew" and "athlete" were uttered in the same sentence. As in, "Matthew is an …," and not, "Matthew, please move out of the way for this …"

This is unprecedented.

Does it make me want to play more sports? Maybe a little, although you have to understand, the rules of this particular game, such as they were, were haphazard and subject to change upon the whims of the homeowners and whatever was funniest. And no one really cared about the outcome of the game. I like competition as much as the next person, except when the next person is a jerk who only cares about winning at all costs, and forgets to be human.

But that's really how I roll, as rules, regulations and order make me itchy. Chaos reminds me I'm not in control of the universe, and good thing, too: There'd be a lot more mimes running around were I in charge.

So at the end of the day, the volleyball game wasn't a life-changing event. But it did make me think maybe there was more to a part of my life than I usually give myself credit for.

And I had more fun over the course of two hours than I did in a lifetime of rope climbing.