Lies, Basketball, the "F" Word, and Me

Sometimes I tell people I was on the high school basketball team. I do not tell them it was the Freshman B team. There was Varsity, Junior Varsity, the Freshman A team and then me. I’m pretty sure it was one of those no one gets cut sort of deals. I had no business playing basketball. I suckity suck suck sucked. Probably because I don’t run. I’m anti-running. As I see it, there is no reason to run. Ever. Should a fire break out in your domicile, you would be much better off exiting in a calm and orderly fashion rather than running and stirring up a panic. Should you spot Brad Pitt at a convenience store, you would be much better off slowly sneaking up on him rather than running at him and scaring him off before you can get your arms around him. Should an ice cream truck overturn on the freeway…no, wait…yes, in that case you are much better off running. Free ice cream! But other than that rare instance, I never opt for running. The fact that my boobs are huge and no sports bra has yet to properly contain them also has something to do with it. Although now that I mention it, two black eyes would probably distract from my huge boobs. Something to think about.

Anyway, basketball. I wasn’t very good and I didn’t take it very seriously. One of my best friends at the time was on the team with me. We’ll call her MC since that was her nickname. She didn’t take basketball very seriously either. We used to have sleepovers the night before games, and stay up all night giggling, even though our coach had expressly forbidden pre-game sleepovers since she was worried we would be up all night giggling and then we wouldn’t be able to focus. Since MC and I had no intention of focusing on the game anyway, we didn’t concern ourselves with this silly rule. So we would wake up late, haul ass out to the car, and then we would remember we were supposed to have breakfast, but there wouldn’t be time, so one of us would grab a box of graham crackers. MC and I very rarely were put into the game seeing as how we’d been up all night and also were not very good so we would just sit on the bench and munch on our graham crackers, very content to not be running.

Then, inevitably, I think because we were only on the Freshman B team we were all supposed to get some play time, the coach would put me in. Fuck I would think. Only I didn’t think “fuck,” I probably thought damn and felt pretty bad ass about it because I was only 14 and hadn’t lived in New York yet. I didn’t hear, think, or say such naughty words until New York. I probably heard the F word more times in one day in New York than I’d heard it in my entire life before. That’s because in New York, people use the F word as a space filler, the way normal people say “um” or are silent. It sounds like this: “So, yeah, fuckin’, I asked him what he wanted to fuckin’ do tonight, and, fuckin’, he was all fuckin’ go out, and I fuckin’ said fuckin’ okay, so we’re going to fuckin’ meet at the fuckin’ diner and then, fuckin’, go out to see a fuckin’ movie or some fuckin’ shit like that. Fuckin’. Oh, also, fuckin’.” Right now, the New Yorkers reading this are thinking, “Haha, fuck yeah!” In New York, fuck is not a word, it’s an attitude, it’s a fucking lifestyle.

So, yeah, when I was 14 and on the Freshman B team there were no f-bombs when I was made to run, but you can be sure I was annoyed as heck. And also a little sick off the darn graham crackers. So now you know the truth. I was a graham cracker eating, non-cursing, non-running, non-superstar of the Freshman B basketball team. I think the person who will be most shocked by this news is a personal trainer I once had who I wanted to impress so I told him I played high school basketball and he told me he was going to work me harder since my body could handle it since I used to be an athlete and since I’d lived in New York by then, I very appropriately and very loudly in my head thought FUCK.

That was also the same personal trainer who asked me for my social security number because he had bad credit but wanted to start a business, but that’s another story for another time. Here’s a hint to how it ended though: I didn’t give it to him and I got another trainer and I did not tell the new one I used to play high school basketball. The end.