Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hefty-bagger Basketball

Since the gym class uniforms are already awful, I thought I would rather sit behind a desk with a cheese grater to my forehead, than put on the horrific, sweaty pinny used by millions of other students that our teacher insisted that we wear. To make things worse, I kinda sorta maybe may have spaced out when the gym teacher released us to battle for a decent-colored pinny, so when my team got there, all that was left was a black and white striped Hefty bag with holes just big enough to fit your hands through without it having the effect of a tourniquette. Then basketball (the selected game of the week) began. And I kinda sorta maybe may have spaced out again when picking opponents and ended up with the total "I'm gonna eat you" athlete crazy people. Ok, so we've established I'm a spacey person.... in gym.

So the game begins, and of course I'm the one to start with the ball. Now, I have never actually played a whole game of basketball, so I knew this would be an experience. As I tried to pass to the only partially open person left on the Hefty bag team, a person flew out of nowhere and used his chest as a blockade. To my luck, he had an unusually bouncy chest, and the ball returned to my posession.

And then it hit me. There was a perfectly good basket sitting right behind me. And since I had miraculously absorbed the rule about no center line push or pull or middle line thingy.... (basically they couldn't cross the middle line until I did) I knew it allowed me to take all the time I needed. I took the shot and the ball went in with a swoosh.

Maybe basketball was my calling.

It didn't make any sense to me that that actually worked, but I turned around expecting my fellow Hefty baggers to start thunderously applauding my clever decision. But no, instead the other team was cheering. Maybe they liked me! Maybe I just made a really good shot! But why wasn't my team cheering?

I finally was told that I shot at the wrong basket. And that's when the person with the bouncy chest bragged about how he got the point, and for the rest of the game he acted as if he was competing against an even remotely good team. I had pointed out several times that he didn't have to try as hard as he was now because his biggest threat was the Hefty bagger that spent more time looking at her nails than the court and screamed and ran away when the ball came within 6 feet of her.

By the end of the class I had aquired the nicknames "rebel," "moron," "backwards basket," and some other uncreative, slightly funny names. So I speak to the future Hefty baggers of the world when I say this- When something seems like an easy shot, it's NOT!