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Oh, The Joy of Testicles

Mar 24, 2008
By .
Effluvia, Life

Yesterday playing basketball I was once again faced with the fact that all men are idiots. Now, I have already proven this truism many times over, but sometimes being a detached observer brings a new perspective.

Basketball is definitely a contact sport, and when you add in contact to competitiveness, any guy can go a little crazy.

One of our players is the smallest and youngest guy in our group. He is ridiculously fast, but has no concept of team basketball. He is always playing one on five. If the ball is passed to him, it will likely not be moving any farther. He also has a disturbing habit of running right into someone (thus initiating the contact) and calling a foul.

Yesterday, he ran right into the tallest guy on the floor and called foul. It was not a foul. Now, the other player could have calmly disagreed (or gone my route and rolled his eyes and asked if they were sure. Passive aggression- it's fun!) instead he took a step forward and yelled "Bullshit!" Needless to say, the level of discourse deteriorated from there.

My problem was several fold. I did not want to see the most lopsided fight since Ron Paul vs. Sanity. I also wanted to keep from laughing at the idea of the two of them going at it. I also did not want to get hurt breaking it up.

What is it about competitive sports that can turn any of us into raging idiots? It's happened to me repeatedly. I wish I could tell you what I was thinking, but I wasn't. I was reacting (well, over-reacting) and not thinking. I honestly could not keep myself from letting my anger boil over. It was a strange and powerless feeling, having the blood roaring in your ears, not wanting to push things any further, but finding yourself helpless to do anything about it.

Does this happen to women? I wonder.

Last 5 posts by Ezra

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2 Comments

  1. Ken  •  Mar 24, 2008 @11:40 am

    This thread is, thankfully, considerably different than what I anticipated based upon the title.

    I understand general dickery more when it's practiced by people actually playing the game. There's all that adrenaline pumping around and stuff. Not that I would know, I'm a medalist in the couch Olympics.

    What makes me shake my head is similar unbalanced behavior by spectators — particularly spectators at kids' games. They've got no excuse.

  2. Chloe  •  Mar 25, 2008 @3:47 pm

    Now the question I ask you men is, when you go home after an encounter such as the one you described, do you "process it" over and over in your head, in your sleep, when your eating, farting, whatever? It takes forever to get over almost any encounter, therefore I try to avoid most encounters if possible because I just don't want to waste all that energy. I try to save my energy for the really important battles. I think this helps me keep a cool head in most situations. I use this mantra "is this schmuck worth it".