My son is tiptoeing around me, asking questions about my blog and my race, trying to break the ice. He knows I am still angry with him.

I agree to bring him to his Saturday practice, alone, another touchy subject because he never arranges a carpool.

“I’m not pleased with you,” I say. “We still have to have that talk.”

“I know,” he says.

He had stayed up until 4:30 in the morning on a school night putting the finishing touches on a chemistry project, Skyping with a high-achieving friend. This questionable decision led to his not meeting other responsibilities the next day.

“And I’m not pleased with Dan either.” My other son has lost his computer privileges one week after getting them back because of letting his grades slip. He hadn’t felt like studying for a quiz. But he’s on crutches due to a stress fracture, which puts him off the track team for the season, the team he was so excited to join just two weeks before.

“And I’m not pleased with daddy either. And I don’t want to run that race today. And I know that none of these are real problems, so I feel terrible.” I “have” to run an obstacle race later in the day because I was asked on my “Say yes” day, but I feel I am the only one who has to live under crazy self-imposed rules.

I am sloshing in a pathetic stew of hormones that will subside within a few days.

“So you feel sad about feeling sad?” David said. “That seems like a vicious circle.”

I saw the first world problems video a few months ago, and I’ve felt guilty and inspired ever since.

“And at my book club meeting last night I heard about this woman I met through tennis who is friends with the book club women….”

I pause, struggling to contain my emotions.

“Mom,” my son says, touching my shoulder.

I lose the struggle and burst out crying, the left lens of my broken glasses steaming up. I am afraid the lens will fall out if I try to clear it because it is held in precariously with Super Glue. I broke my glasses the other day, and I only have an expired pair of trial contacts as an alternative because I somehow failed to schedule an eye exam and cannot get a new prescription for contacts until I do.

“And her daughter just got home from surgery on her skull because, I don’t know, ten years ago or so a nanny apparently smashed her head when she was a baby and she had brain damage and is lucky to be alive and the nanny never admitted wrongdoing and somehow served only three months in jail.”

I blurt out: “That’s real problems.”

We drive the rest of the way to the courts in silence.

“Thanks,” my son says. “Good luck.” He grabs his gear from the back seat and walks away.

And I drive away, grateful.

Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth. If she can just hold off this batter, she’ll get her first win.

The 7th-grade wood shop teacher made it clear that girls shouldn’t be in shop. The alternative, home economics, had a final project to sew a silken-backed vest by hand. I wanted to wear a silken-backed vest even less than I wanted to sew one, so there I was, the only girl among heavy machinery and a roomful of boys.

Shy and awkward, I was the kid always picked last in gym class, but I had just seen Tatum O’Neal in The Bad New Bears. Her character, Amanda, had something special that others wanted. She threw a baseball like none of the boys could, so she made demands for French jeans and ballet lessons. She chewed her gum with authority, squinted her eyes at the batter on the plate, and let fly a fastball.

I slipped on some confidence like Amanda’s cleated sneakers and tried it out, walking gingerly. It seemed to fit. So even though I couldn’t throw a baseball and wouldn’t dream of changing my Levi’s for imported jeans, I carried a little bit of Amanda with me into the wood shop class.

My teacher, age 80 or thereabouts, treated any question I asked or mistake I made as clear proof that a girl didn’t belong in his class.

And here’s the windup. The pitch: a fastball, low at the knees. Ball three.

I had been fumbling with my candle holder for the last few days of shop class. I avoided asking my teacher for help by getting busy with my sandpaper any time he came around. That wood was as smooth as a Louisville Slugger.

Still, the whine of the saws, the smell of the sawdust, the new creation made by my hands, I was beginning to enjoy the class, beginning to belong.

And she lets loose a curve ball. Strike two. A full count: 3 and 2.

The boys asked him questions all the time, so why shouldn’t I? I popped in a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit and began chewing away.

Here comes the pitch. Will it be another fastball?

“Um, Mr. Jones? I need help putting the blade in the band saw to cut my next piece,” I said.

Mr. Jones put down the candle holder he was inspecting and looked me square in the face. A pause.

He said, “You are chewing your gum like a cow chewing its cud.”

There’s a long drive. Oh, what a hit. It’s over the fence. A home run!

Game lost, I stood there lonely on the mound, cheeks burning.

The fact that he’s probably been dead for 30 years doesn’t lessen my shame. That game is etched in the record books forever.

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This is part of a series, Scene from a Memoir.