"Tell me again why you want to drive for an hour to buy a little piece "What I need is not a ‘piece of plastic’. It’s a highly specialized "This place I want to go is the most complete sporting goods store in Actually, what we had was a coupon. Norma was along because, well, As we parked she spotted a Pier 1 Imports across the tarmac and we The only other place we knew that had the brace we wanted for sure was We wandered in and ambled over to Tennis, feeling old and decrepit among We were outraged! They had every conceivable piece of equipment Our righteous indignation boiled up and so of course we immediately They had a whole football field full of hunting and fishing gear, with But nothing for an aching tennis elbow. <\/p>\n We had circumnavigated both floors of the huge sports warehouse, and In the words of the inestimable Rossana Rossanadana, "Never mind."<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This afternoon we found ourselves flying up route 128 towards Glouster, past that inexplicable stretch where you are simultaneously going North on 93 and SOUTH on 128, with Norma Yvonne riding shotgun and dark clouds gathering on the horizon, promising … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/dikks.gif\")
This afternoon we found ourselves flying up route 128 towards Glouster,
\n past that
\n inexplicable stretch<\/a> where you are simultaneously going North
\n on 93 and SOUTH on 128, with Norma Yvonne riding shotgun and dark clouds
\n gathering on the horizon, promising spring showers. <\/p>\n
\n of plastic you could get five minutes from the house?’ she coyly inquired. <\/p>\n
\n piece of medical equipment." We have been suffering of late from an
\n acute case of tennis elbow, tendonitis to the medically inclined,
\n and besides keeping us up at night, the stabbing pain was starting to
\n affect out game. A fellow member of the "Just Don’t Suck" Tennis
\n Club, a doctor of some kind, swears by a gel and velcro contraption. He
\n says there is no medical reason it should work, but it does. <\/p>\n
\n the area. When
\n something as important as physical mobility is at stake, you want to
\n go where they have the best products, and the best variety. You want
\n to have choices." <\/p>\n
\n it WAS shopping, after all, and she knew stores are like the cracked
\n brakes on Amtrak’s
\n Acela Express – when you find one, there are sure to be hundreds of others
\n nearby. <\/p>\n
\n arranged to meet back at the car. We were headed for the brand new, three
\n story
\n Sports
\n MegaStore,
\n Dick’s Sporting Good, a mammoth silo featuring several complete campgrounds,
\n four and eight man sculls hanging from the ceiling, and a 50-foot climbing
\n wall. <\/p>\n
\n the hoity toity overpriced specialty store on Mt. Auburn St. in Harvard
\n Square. We refused to shop there on general principle. If
\n anybody besides the Harvard Tennis and Squash Club had the elbow braces,
\n it would
\n be
\n Dick.<\/p>\n
\n so many buff bodies and gen whatever sporsters. We found hundreds of
\n tennis racquets, Prince and Head and Dunlop and Wilson. Balls galore.
\n Strings, and vibration absorbers, and tape and grips and gloves and visors. But
\n no elbow braces, or any other kind of palative aids. We started
\n looking around for a special section of sports medicine or braces, but
\n nothing! <\/p>\n
\n to play any possible sport you could think of, but absolutely nothing
\n to help you when you hurt yourself playing them! Nothing to intimate
\n that participating in all these wonderful sports can cause painful, crippling
\n injuries. No section for aging weekend warriors. <\/p>\n
\n started thinking of a blog post. We would enumerate all of the
\n ridiculous and exotic equipment they have, and wind up with the one
\n thing they don’t. We whipped an old receipt out of our wallet and
\n started scribbling.<\/p>\n
\n enough camouflage to outfit a third world insurrection, camouflaged pants
\n and
\n ponchos and
\n sleeping bags and tents,. They had guns of every variety and enough
\n survival gear to outlast the Apocalypse. They had a half dozen different
\n turkey decoys and a Terminator Elk System. We saw over 800 fishing poles,
\n and
\n a variety of lures including Got-ya Jig Heads, electronic fish finders
\n and freeze-dried pre-cooked Scrambled Eggs and Bacon in clever, self-heating
\n foil pouches. There were canoes, kayaks and sculls, bicycles, free weights,
\n treadmills, rowing
\n machines,
\n and additional rows of mean-looking machines of no obvious purpose. They
\n had speed bags, heavy bags duffle bags and a whole section of whatever
\n you need to perform
\n Pilates, whatever that is. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/nitttru.jpg\")
In the
\n middle of the store was a huge island dedicated exclusively to sunglasses.
\n There were balls of everywhere: base, basket, soccer, tennis, ping pong, paddle, squash,
\n volley, dodge, hand, foot, golf, bowling, soft, billiard, playground, candlepin
\n and bocce. Not to mention pucks, birdies and stones. <\/p>\n
\n were back where we started, in the tennis section. Disgusted, we looked
\n behind us before marching from the premesis – and there they were. Sportopedics
\n Nitro Armbands<\/a>. $12.95 (with the coupon, half what they cost in Harvard Square). <\/p>\n