In L.A. Story, Steve Martin’s character says that he knows he likes a woman when he finds himself trying desperately to make her laugh, “which is the idiot’s version of being interesting.” Almost two years ago, when I first started dating Alexa, I was an idiot trying to be interesting. At the time, she was an obsessive user of “Dodgeball,” the service that allows you to “check in” at bars to your phone, which then alerts all your friends where you are. I didn’t understand this service, because I never want anyone to know where I am, ever. So, when two years ago rumors circulated that the service was closing, I tried to jokingly make fun of her for it by writing a mock poem in the tone of the late Johan More, poet laureate of The Black Table.
Today, Dodgeball officially died. So, in honor of this odd little insulary service that I never used and do not understand, The Dodgeball Poem.
Dodgeball
by Will Leitch
Oh!
Oh!
Where have you gone?
Have I been forsaken?
I am lost.
I am out.
Out!
But no one knows.
No. One. Knows.
Out!
Out!
Does no one hear me?
Does no one understand?
I am out!
Out!
But there
is
only
silence.
Oh!
Oh!
Out!
No!
now
i
must
be
in
Oh!
I can’t believe that woman kept hanging out with me.
