I should explain before I start that in my normal state I have no manual dexterity at all. None. Throw something in my direction and I won’t even try to catch it 'cos my feeble attempts are just tooo embarrassing.
But yesterday man, let me tell ya 'bout yesterday! I was in the fresh fruit part of my local supermarket, not really looking at the produce making a bee line for to the ice cream. Then, before I was aware what was happening, I had reached down and caught, one handed, a foot off the ground, the most enormous watermelon imaginable. The aisle was deserted and I missed my well deserved standing ovation. NUTS!!!
So any other dopers out there performed any athletic feats which they feel deserve mention?
A couple of months ago, I had the satisfaction of chasing down a guy who is generally recognized as one of the fastest people in our Chapter in order to thrash him soundly with nerfsabers. It was his own fault–he always picks on me when our situations are reversed.
I didn’t get a standing ovation either–we’d left everyone else behind–but the look of shock on his face as he turned to cast a Flamestrike at me and found me swinging at him from less than 4 feet away was priceless. Especially to a guy who’s never won a race in his life! When one of his teammates caught up and flamed me, he collapsed, stared at me, and said, “How the @#$& did you catch me?!”
I routinely dodge or snatch things out of the air when people throw them at me, but I’ve never been at all fast on my feet. Sometimes, things just work.
I was in the last row of my 11th grade history class. I had a piece of paper that I wanted to jettison, so I crumpled it and tossed it at the wastebasket. I was in a straight line with the waistbasket, but about 30 feet away from it. I saw, and Mr. B. saw, the paper wad arc slowly the length of the row and finally come to rest, with a soft thunk, in the wastebasket without touching the rim. Said Mr. B., who was also the softball coach, “That’s it: you’re coming out for the team!” (Long story short; I didn’t.)
I was once in the cafeteria line and dropped a water glass on the ceramic tile floor. I took a swipe at it and missed, and it rang out like a bell when it bounced two times before I caught it. But I just put it on my tray and pretended nothing had happened. The line broke into applause.