Sweaty Basketball Guy
Thought up: 8.28.03 – 12:00pm
Written: 9.3.03 - 7:07 pm
#19
Growing up I always was into sports. I was weaned on baseball, basketball and fishing. Pops was a 3-sport athlete in his high school days, and he taught those things to me. Granted, I could practiced them a little more than I did, but nonetheless, I would say I had a fine athletic career when I was growing up.
I was a late bloomer, graduating with a stellar 150 pounds under my belt, and nearly 5’9” tall. Needless to say, I didn’t have to shave until I started to grow a little patch on my right cheek. Picture getting a piece of scotch tape about 2 inches long, dragging it along the top of a dusty book shelf, for maybe 2 feet, and then putting that on your right jaw bone. Yea, that was me. I kept those 14 hairs nice and trim all through school; never having to worry about shaving like those other guys that had full beards or, what seemed to be, entire Chia pets under their arms. No sir, not me.
I was skinny and hairless until college, and that’s what scared me the most in high school. How can so many of these guys be so damn big? I tried eating wheelbarrows full of food for about a week one time, and drinking entire cow udders full of milk five or six times. Nothing seemed to help me put on any weight. I thought about lifting weights, but all that does is make you tired. That didn’t sound like fun. Weights were too heavy anyway. I didn’t really let it bother me unless I was involved in some sort of contact sport, like basketball.
Now, like I said, I wasn’t really the kid in school that needed the “Jared Subway sandwich plan” by any means, but there were a few kids that did. They’d come out and play basketball, and I guarantee, the perspiration that would come off some of these guys was enough to drown me in my 150 pound frame, and for some God-awful reason, I would always be stuck guarding them! I’d remember back to all my coaches telling me to stay up on them, keep a hand in their face, and don’t let them touch the ball. But me doing that, meant me sticking my 5’7” face right in their 5’7” armpit.
I didn’t smell bad in high school, I didn’t have the hormones to make the sweat yet I figured, but these guys I was guarding, I tell you what, they didn’t even realize that they were trying to smuggle dead gophers out of the gym in their underarms! Now, I’m not talking dead-gophers-that-have-been-left-out-for-a-week-armpits, I’m talking ‘bout dead-gophers-that-died-from-eating-a-dead-moldy-cheese-laden-rabbit-head-found-in-the-port a pottie-armpit! I hated coming home all the time stinking of fat-guy sweat, but I’d always be the one to guard him/her (Yes, there were nasty smelling ladies too). Someone would yell, “Get up on him! Guard him close! He’s a good shooter!” I’d think to myself, “Are you kidding me? I know this guy has the nation’s only fart-preserve up in that pit-hair somewhere! You get up on him, get a whiff of that, and I guarantee I’ll be more useful than you when you’re passed-out on the damn court floor! This kid was certainly setting himself up to be one of the premier Garbage Pail Kids of the future! He could have been: Pukepits Peter. But good ol’ Peter was just one in a long line of distinguished grade school Garbage Pail Wannabes…
How could anyone forget:
Scalpy Snowfarmer: The kid that didn’t seem to understand what the word “shampoo” meant. I don’t see how someone couldn’t realize that they were letting their kid go to school like this! This kid used to sit in front of me, and I’d just watch the flies build snow castles on his shoulders. It was a fine time.
Drippy VonWetseat: You KNOW that Drippy wasn’t one to ever use the toilet for these types of things. After all, you’re in the back corner of the classroom, it’s not like anyone is going to hear you doing it, let alone smelling it! Let ‘er rip bucko!
Snotty Sleeve Steve: This is the kid that would have everything under the sun on his sleeve. It was used primarily for the facial fluid leaks, but occasionally for rationing of food to be eaten later that somehow got on there during lunch time when, heaven forbid, there were no napkins DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM!
Suck-up-Studying-Sam: This is the kid that never really made any friends, but somehow was extremely good at schoolwork. You’d be trying to cheat on a damn test, and he’d say, “keep your eyes on your own paper!” Obviously this kid got shoved into a lot of lockers in his day, but boy did this kid get all the teachers’ attention. Way to go Sam! You’re going to grow up to be a huge tard-knocker that’s gonna spend his Saturday nights talking to guys on the internet pretending to be 2 hot lesbians that just LOVE nerds! Oh that’ll totally happen dude!
Boogie McHonkerSchnoz: The kid that would blow their nose in the Kleenex just to pick it out later so that they didn’t look disgusting, eating it right in front of you. “Oh Boogie, don’t worry, I didn’t see you do anything right there. You must just be eating those leftover cocoa krispies you put in there during lunchtime! Don’t worry; I don’t suspect one single disgustingly nasty thing! Carry on!”
I imagine that today Sam is some high-up admin assistant with a good company. Steve is happily working for a pants company and their new stain-free defenders. Drippy has made a fortune in the adult diapers industry I’m certain! Scalpy has made more than a few people rich fighting the snowstorm in his hair! But Boogie, pooooooooooor Boogie, nobody wants a guy that eats his boogers out of a tissue, honestly Boogie…
