Withdrawal symptoms

Lately I have been feeling a tad under the weather
After almost 3 months of uninterrupted rain, my cup runneth over, literally.

After checking with a medical website, it dawned on me that I had been affected by the dreaded Pétanque Withdrawal Syndrome.

According to WebMD, the Pétanque Withdrawal Syndrome is a potentially life-threatening condition that can occur in people who have been pétanquing heavily for weeks, months, or years and then either stop or significantly reduce their adrenaline consumption.
After weeks of pétanque deprivation, I felt “excessive hunger, fatigue, lethargy, loss of appetite, night sweats, restlessness, shakiness, weakness, clammy skin, craving, feeling cold, or sweating.”

 The website by the way also mentioned “insomnia, nightmares, sleepiness, or sleeping difficulty” and “delirium, depression, hallucination, paranoia, or severe anxiety”.
This explains a lot of things.

Because you cannot quit pétanque cold turkey. It can be very detrimental to your health.

But with the sudden reappearance of “le beau blond” (French colloquialism for bright sun) everything is about to change.

After weeks of pétanque deprivation, I am more than ready to go back to the field of glory.
These last few days I have been polishing my boules, and like Jack Palance I have been doing one-arm pushups to strengthen my shooting limb.
I feel sorry for the people who are going to face me in the (hopefully dry) arena.

For us to play again though, the field has got to be reasonably dry and last time I checked (about a week ago) the court looked as dry as an Irish bog.

I have been praying all week to Tonatiuh the Aztec Sun God and he seems to be helping. If he does not, I’ll pray to Sūryaprabha the Buddhist Sun God.

This is the beauty of polytheism.  If you are not satisfied with your favorite god’s performance you can easily switch to another deity.
I wish we could do this with our overpaid, pathetically under performing congressmen.

In any case, if Tonatiuh delivers, I will be on the field this week end.
Warning: Approach me with extreme caution; I am full of piss and vinegar!

Alain