Call her a mess if you want, but there’s one label she refuses to accept

I don’t think I’m a contrarian — mainly because I’ve known a few contrarians in my life, and they were exhausting. Even worse, I was related to those contrarians, and all of them excelled at sucking the life out of any family gathering.

Based on my experience, labeling someone a contrarian is just an extremely polite way of calling out a person for being a jerk who’s obsessed with the sound of their own voice.

So, imagine my horror when I was recently called a contrarian.

At first, I thought I must have heard the person incorrectly. This caused me to respond with a rather surprised “Pardon me.”

That “pardon me” quickly turned to a WTH? Because that person then slowly repeated the word: “con-trar-i-an.”

This churned up a wave pool of emotions.

First and foremost were all the family holidays where contrarians attempted to ruin things like the wonder of Christmas by trotting out their anti-Santa Claus views. These killjoy opinions were mainly based on things like the North Pole not being habitable for humansthus meaning Santa is a myth.

One year, I think I was 20 (yes, 20, but who doesn’t want to defend Santa Claus?), I lost it and screamed, “Yes, yes, we know that. But Santa is magic, thus the rules of human survival don’t apply.”

As these moments cycled through my psyche, I became more and more appalled that anyone would think I was a contrarian and also how dare someone call me that?

Most especially how dare someone call me that over pickleball.

That’s right: pickleball. The fact that I’m not a pickleball enthusiast seemed to have irked the person who just labeled me a contrarian.

This to me was absurd. I have nothing against the sport; I just have no plans to ever play it. It’s not like I’m dissing Santa. I’m just saying pickleball isn’t for me.

To justify my statement and to prove that I’m not a contrarian, I began listing the numerous reasons for my hard pass on pickleball.

I started with the fact that I’ve got a janky knee. The medical term for it is arthritis, but I prefer janky, believing that somehow it makes me sound less old — or not.

Quick backstory: When I went to the orthopedist about the janky knee he asked me if I was an athlete. For a brief few seconds I was like, “Wow, someone thinks I was an athlete.” I was radiating happiness because athlete is a word that has not in a single moment in my time on Earth been used to describe me.

Sadly, before I even had a chance to really bask in the joy of being mistaken for being super sporty, the doctor said, “We ask everyone that question.”

Sigh.

Sorry for the detour. Now back to pickleball and my knees.

I continued my list with fervor, explaining that all the quick starts and stops in the game coupled with the fact that I’m extremely uncoordinated is a guarantee I’m going to get injured.

Also — and this might be related to being uncoordinated — I’m hopelessly uncompetitive. I’m the person who says ridiculous things (and I’ve been told immensely irritating) like, “Do we have to keep score? Let’s just play for fun.”

I finished my list with the sad but true statement that all of this means nobody ever wants me on their team.

The woman who a few minutes ago had described me as a contrarian took a long look at me. I couldn’t tell if she was bemused or scared, but then she said, “I take it back you’re not a contrarian. You’re a disaster.”

I smiled and said, “You’re correct because I’ll take being a disaster over a contrarian any day.”

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and at snarkyinthesuburbs.com.