I played basketball again last night, and much to my chagrin, I still suck. (If need be, go here for part one of my Eternal Suckiness).

I think I may have somehow gotten worse. I have discovered there are three types of players.

Type A: People who suck (me) that are just playing for the exercise.

Type B: People who are good that are just playing for the exercise.

Type C: People who, regardless of their abilities, take it way too fucking seriously.

Most of the people that do play are people that I work with, and we are playing for nothing. But there are some that are invited by others. So obviously, the competitive meter shouldn't be set on high. Well, actually no. High is fine. It shouldn't be on EXTREME!!!!

At the start of our second game last night, there was a new guy who came in, and it turned out I'd be covering him. He was bigger than me, not necessarily taller, but bigger. Obviously stronger, but I thought I'd be fine against him.

What you couldn't tell by his body type was his mental capacity. This dude was fucking insane. He kept making grunting noises and was sweating profusely within 18 seconds. And he never stopped running. He was either on batteries or coke. Coke that ran on batteries. And the noises he made were hilarious. He sounded like a dog doing an impression of Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.

"Grrr. Raff. Hughghflb. Hoo-Ah! Rrrr. Yah!"

But my favorite was after he scored a basket, he would actually say, "Yee-ha!" Then he'd run to the other end of the court with both of his arms in the air with his fingers pointing up. He was number 1. I'm not sure who still says Yee-ha past the age of whatever the age is when you stop wanting to be a cowboy, but apparently this guy still has some dreams of being the first cowboy basketball player.

There was another guy who is a really good player, but takes it a bit too hard. At one point the ball was going out of bounds and we were both going for it. We were also on the same team, but I was ahead of him, so I didn't know who was behind me. He says "Same" which to me means we are on the same team, but to him meant, "You should stop right now, although you are closer to the ball and only a foot behind it, then I will jump for it and save it from going out of bounds and hit it back to you." But I didn't know that. Dude flips and punches a table. It's one of those old high school cafeteria tables that fold up and stand vertically. Well, the table collapses and almost everyone looks at him and realizes he's taking this too far. Except for Cowboy who I think said, "Yee-ha!" and then fired his fake guns into the air.

I don't like losing, obviously. No one does. But when you are playing in a high school gym with a bunch of guys that, for the most part, don't really give a shit, you should keep your table punching in check. It's like my dad always said, "Michael. No one likes a table puncher. Except for cowboys. Now be a good boy and go make daddy a Martini, extra olives."