PORT COLBORNE, ON — Large numbers of gay seniors initially drawn to popular racquet sport pickleball are abandoning the game after realizing it has nothing to do with male genitalia.
“We may be gay, but we’re still boomers,” shared Don Stevenson, a 72-year-old resident of Niagara Falls. “We don’t get pronouns, skew conservative, and will jam a face-palmingly obvious sex pun into anything.”
“That’s what HE said,” added Stevenson, referencing his own previous comment.
Stevenson said the discovery of a local pickleball league had originally intrigued him, but that he was disappointed to arrive at the club’s registration day to discover an open-air court with players of all ages, gender identities, and orientations.
“I guess I was expecting more racquet action,” he admitted, before breaking into an excruciating grin. “Get it?”
Behavioural psychologist Dr Trisha Gonzalez says such misunderstandings are to be expected from a generation of cis-men who grew up sandwiched between an aggressive social patriarchy and the smothering innuendo of Hollywood Squares.
“It was a time when men were men,” reminisced recently-out senior George Jenkins. “Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly. Guys you’d trust to fix your Pinto.”
Jenkins says men of his generation find modern comedic conventions increasingly complicated and prefer the reliability of his era’s more obvious prey.
“We’re like near-sighted birds,” posited Jenkins. “If the fish ain’t swimmin’ on the surface, I ain’t goin’ for it. Though I don’t have a problem with divin’ for eels,” he added with a wink visible from space.
Dr Gonzalez’s research suggests that, while the post-postmodernists of Generation X and beyond enjoy the intricacies of more nuanced social vernacular, gay boomers like their punchlines “violently oppressive.”
Elaborated Jenkins with an aggressive nudge: “If I’m too much, just say the safe word. ‘More!’”
Pickleball was created in the 1960s by U.S. Congressman Joel Pritchard and two companions who devised the game to repurpose leftover sports equipment. Its name references a “pickle boat,” the term used to describe an ad hoc rowing team of unassigned players.
“I rode a pickle boat once,” smirked (gay) retiree Dennis Chow. “Walked funny for a week.”
Droves of senior citizens have “rediscovered” pickleball in recent years due to its simple rules, lightweight equipment and gentle pace, making it ideal for participants with cardiovascular conditions and other health restrictions associated with its largely older demographic.
“Everyone is welcome here,” said Port Colborne Pickleball League president Shelley Duquesne, “but those guys don’t even play. They just stand around muttering bad jokes.”
Jenkins and his friend have no plans to return.
“I’d rather have a heart attack than play with those prudes. Plus,” he added, pulling an imaginary truck horn, “I heard the Y’s startin’ hot yoga. Arooooooooga!”
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