We had a tremendous win for our first and last games, but the four games in between were tremendously disastrous! Two weeks ago marked the end of my team’s season in a co-ed basketball league where our team of of six guys, two girls and one Geremy tried to become champions. During our first game we played with optimism and bright spirits, which resulted in a huge win and bright hopes for the basketball season, but we were not sure what was waiting for us in our dark, gloomy future.
A week later we prepared for our second game against a team named “Your Mom.” As I spoke to my friends and family about the upcoming game, people became nervous when I explained how badly we were going to beat Your Mom. “Your Mom has got to be the worst. There’s no way that I’m going to let Your Mom beat us. We are going to DESTROY Your Mom!” I received some weird looks from eavesdropping strangers as I dismissively spoke about Your Mom, but I didn’t mind because I knew that Your Mom was going to lose! When we got to the court and played Your Mom, we were the ones who suffered the loss— a loss of respect, a loss of confidence and worst of all, a huge loss of the basketball game. This led me to tweet the following note, in an attempt to save face and cheer myself up:
Unfortunately, this loss was just the start of the downward spiral that we were going to experience. We began to lose so many games that I considered renting a hearse to travel to and from the games to appropriately recognize and mourn the loss of our once amazing team. But right before we gave up all hope, we became determined to get one more win under our belt before the season ended.
All of a sudden, the dispirited team made an enormous turnaround and began to play like players in the 1993 arcade game, NBA JAM! At one point, I think I saw a girl on our team jump from the halfcourt line to make a behind-the-back, 360 degree, reverse slamdunk, while using her free hand to simultaneously send a text message to her uncle. We finally found our power and the final victory was ours!!
Although the season was short and discouraging at times, I enjoyed every single game. Best of all, I learned a very valuable lesson: Don’t talk trash about Your Mom because it will trigger bad things, like multiple tragic losses and weeks of sadness!