[Angela]

Thanks, Megan. In beach volleyball, there's an etiquette rule that is a little difficult to abide by, but when everybody honors it, it works pretty well.

"Call your own." If a player makes an illegal play: say, he double-hits a set and the ball spins wildly. That player is expected to say, "my bad", and his team forfeits the point. Everybody makes mistakes, nobody is immune; so calling your own creates a lot of good will and makes everybody want to play with you. Sometimes a set is so awful and spinny and ugly that everyone watching holds their breath, waiting for the player to call his own, and it can be a tense moment. If he doesn't call it, an angry opposing player might call it for him and create defensiveness and humiliation (which affects everyone of course), or get all mad which usually messes up his own game, or sometimes even start an altercation. Any of those scenarios can really mess up the beauty of a volleyball day, so all the responsible players do their best to call their own, and we try to dissuade the irresponsible ones from playing on our courts, if possible. Or some brave soul will gently take him aside privately and say, "perhaps you are not aware of the rules by which we play here." If none of that works, we all go for beer.

I think I will write a book about beach volleyball as an allegory for life.