Blood, Sweat and...Cards?

If you asked her, she would say that we had met in the fall 2008 semester, but I don't remember meeting her then to be honest. She told the story of how I would come into the training room after basketball class (college credit for playing pick up games). She said she asked me whether I needed anything, assuming I was an athlete for the college and not someone who worked in the training room. I brushed her off and went to get myself bags of ice to treat the variety of injuries I get when I play.

She is probably telling the truth, cause that does sound a lot like me after ball. What I remember, however, is meeting her the next semester. Same place, training room, just not right after I ran up and down a court for 2 hours. See, the college offers a class called sports medicine practicum, in it, a student helps out in the training room by taping athletes, hooking them up to muscle stim, doing ultra-sound treatments and other sporty-healy stuff. The thing about that is, the athletes all have pretty much the same schedual: school in the morning and practice in the afternoon. Their practices all started around 3ish, so if you came in during the time period from 10am to noon, there wasn't a whole lot to do.

Being good, dedicated students, the dozen of use just played cards. Thirteen, Egyptian war and poker. Poker was played using rolls of tape that had been used to a point of uselessness; we called them tape ends. The game of choice was almost exclusively hold'em. But Ash didn't know how to play hold'em, and that led to my first ever memory of her: speed.

Speed the card game. It started with both of us being bored. I didn't know her name, and I dont think she cared enough to know mine. She was very competitive and I wasn't just going to loose on purpose because she didn't have something dangling between her legs. I lost more than I won when we played, but I have a hunch that she cheated on some of those games. I didn't really care, it was all good in the training room.