Q – Quidditch Athlete

Sports stars seem to earn a lot of money.  The richest people I can think of are the Beckhams and Rooneys of this world; grown men who are paid the annual GDP of Luxembourg to shepherd a piece of leather into a net.  It seems like easy money, provided you have the fitness and skill level required to do it.  Unfortunately, I have neither of those skills, and am unlikely to do so as long as I keep avoiding exercise as if I have a sweat phobia.  I considered trying a non-athletic sport such as snooker, but I don’t look good in a waistcoat.

So it would seem that the worlds of sports and athletics are closed to people such as me.  This seems very unfair.  Just because we aren’t willing to shovel performance-enhancers down our gullets doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be allowed to compete.  I needed to find a sport where your fitness levels aren’t a problem, and where it doesn’t matter if you look like a dork.  That’s why I delved into the exciting world of Quidditch.

If you aren’t aware, Quidditch is a made up sport from Lord Of The Rings where competitors swim around in a spherical pool and shoot balls out of cannons.  Fortunately, the real life version of this sport is a little easier to understand.  You prance around with a broom between your legs, pretend that you’re flying, and throw balls through hoops.  It’s like basketball, but you walk around as though you’re trying to hide an erection.

Let push for this to be an Olympic sport in Rio 2016!

Joining a Quidditch team is remarkably easy.  You don’t have to prove yourself physically; you just choose a “house”.  I chose Slytherin because it sounded a little bit like foreskin, which no else seemed to find hilarious no matter how many times I pointed it out. 

So I found myself as the seeker for Slytherin Wanderers.  My job was to capture “the snitch”, which was a person running around the field with a top t shirt.  Capturing the snitch wins the game immediately, so I began to devise cunning schemes on how to achieve this.  Most of my nets were confiscated before the game, and the referee postponed the game due to an abundance of bear traps on the field.  In the end, I simply climbed up a tree, waited, then leaped on the snitch from a great height.  When I caught him, I tried to beat information out the snitch, drilling him with questions such as “who have you been snitching to?” and “where are the KGB hiding the nuclear device?”.  Turned out the golden snitch wasn’t exactly what I thought it was.

Still, I was fascinated by the idea of being a snitch.  You had to evade capture, which seemed like a lot of fun in a Loony Tunes, Road Runner kind of way.  I applied to become a snitch, and found myself wearing the coveted gold shirt in the next game.

The rules state that the snitch can leave the pitch and go wherever it wants.  On this revelation, I simply ran off the field as soon as the match started, jumped on a bus, and spent the rest of the game on my sofa at home eating crisps.  They still haven’t found me.  What a bunch of idiots!