But You Make Such A Beautiful Wreck, You Do

So I joined a softball team. I should have known what was coming when the organizer sent out an e-mail encouraging everyone, especially those without much experience, to join the team.

If you’ve ever watched movies where machete-wielding adventurers hack their way through the rainforest, you have a pretty good sense of what we look like in the batter’s box. And if you’ve ever noticed how magnets can sometimes repel one another, you now understand what happens when a ball comes anywhere near any of our gloves.

We’re spectacularly bad, and in a way that’s almost awesome. Not only are we the worst team in the least competitive league in the entire city, we’re the worst by far. We’re not even close to being the second worst. We are the Edsel. We are the Titanic. We are Sanjaya.

This might get some teams down, but not us. When the umpire tells us we have to score five runs to keep the mercy rule from kicking in, we confidently announce that we’ll see his five and raise him seven. Even if we haven’t yet hit the ball past the pitcher’s mound.

Can blind optimism be endearing?

Well, it’s that same sentiment that propels the Mortified Shoebox Show. If you’re not familiar with Mortified, it started out about a decade ago when founder Dave Nadelberg started sharing wince-worthy love letters he composed as a teenager. It turned into wildly popular stage performances where people read the contents of their adolescent journals, among other things. Similar programs (like Cringe) followed suit. And now it's a podcast.

Following the well known formulation that comedy = tragedy + time, adolescent angst and earnestness turns out to be pretty entertaining.

On drawing logical conclusions: “I hate Drake and I want him to burn in a really slow way that hurts a lot. Because he sucks, is why.”

On love : “Today I went down to Liz’s boat. We played Scrabble but nothing happened. It’s obvious she wanted something to, though. While we listened to 'Sittin’ up in my Room,' we gave each other loving glances.”

And I’m sure Led Zeppelin would have loved to hear one woman’s eighth grade musical chronicling of the history of the Red River Colony: Stairway to Winnipeg.

Sometimes you want to save people from themselves. But it’s often far more entertaining to sit back watch the self-inflicted carnage. Pass me my batting gloves.