I don't understand why they call it padel. When they invited me to watch the Athletica Vaticana padel tournament, I had no idea what it was, what people were doing, or what I was supposed to do. I didn't know what padel meant. When someone invites me somewhere, I always go because I like getting out and seeing things, and new things even more. So I went. I figured it out right away—padel is basically those big rackets, except you don't play on the beach. You play on a court, and if you fall, it really hurts. Your knees scrape up and you bleed. It didn't happen to me, but it happened to other people. With beach rackets, if you fall on the sand it doesn't hurt at all. It's actually fun. And you can even play in the water, which is even better when it's really hot because your legs stay cool.
I asked everyone right away why they call it padel. It makes no sense. I couldn't figure it out. If you say "beach rackets" instead, everyone knows what you mean. Playing is easy—you hit the ball with your racket and send it to the other person. Easy. You can't really tell who wins, but honestly I don't care. When I see the other person wants to actually play for real and not just fool around, every time the ball hits the ground I yell "yeeees" or "aleeee" or "come onnnnn" or "let's gooooo"—that way it seems like I won. Even though I don't know if I did. The game is fun. Sometimes I like to hit really hard and far. And sometimes I smash it way up in the air. I think that's fun to do. I also like that there's no referee like in soccer. You can play beach rackets with four people too, but I don't like it as much because it gets confusing and I don't know when it's my turn because there are too many of us. I play beach rackets a ton at the shore and I ask everyone to play with me. When someone gets tired, I ask someone else. Anyway, at the beach I say I'm playing beach rackets. Not padel—that's a word nobody understands.