I'd Gladly Trade You My Cow For Some Magic Jeans

I absolutely despise shopping for jeans for myself. It's a painstaking venture to say the least. I will literally spend hours upon hours of my time, drive to all surrounding malls, and try on hundreds of pair of jeans before I find just the right pair...and by right pair, I mean that they must be just the right color (dark but not too dark), they can't have blasted out color on the thighs or the bum, no weird whiskering, they need to have a long inseam, little to no stretch at all, and most importantly, they must must absolutely must have magical powers in the back pockets. So you can imagine that when I find that special pair, I buy several pairs at once because if you have ever found a pair of jeans that you loved the way you looked in them, you know all too well that you will not be able to find that exact pair next season.

As it turns out, I thought I would take advantage of the Tax Free Weekend and back to school sales and start my jean search early this year. I have noticed that there is a particular store that sells jeans that seem to look flattering on everyone and it just so happened that this particular store was having a huge sale on their denim. Once I got there, I grabbed 6 pairs all different cuts and headed to the fitting room. I'll confess that this is a store I don't frequent much simply because it has a high ma'am factor. Every employee, including the manager, appeared to be under the legal drinking age, and every single one of those precious tots referred to me as ma'am. "Can I help you ma'am?" "Pardon me, ma'am." Are you finding everything okay, MA'AM?" UGH!! Why don't they just call me "Old Lady" and offer me a wheel chair?! When exactly did I go from being a "Miss" to a "Ma'am?" Maybe that's why I like old men so much (and I don't mean that as creepy as it sounds). They just make me feel young and pretty. They never ever call me ma'am. It's always, "Hey there, kid" or "How are you sweetheart?" Would it really hurt these teenagers to call me sweetheart? I'm just sayin'.

When I got to the fitting room, I was greeted by quite possibly the friendliest 19-year old boy that I have ever met. I bet his official job title is something like Fitting Room Schmoozer, and let me just say, he was very good at his job. He managed to make everyone who crossed that threshold feel welcome and quite possibly even excited about trying on pants...and that's something I haven't felt since I, myself,  was 19. So there I was in my fitting stall eager to be able  to tell my beloved, George, that not only did I find my magic jeans at the first store but I bought 3 pair for the price I normally pay for one (after all, magic jeans don't come cheap in the postpartum years). My Personal Schmoozer had already informed me that these jeans stretch quite a bit so I may want to go down a size. Let me just say I abhor stretchy jeans. When you wear stretchy jeans, you inevitably look as though you need a diaper change and quite frankly, with all the ma'aming I get these days, I don't want sport that look. I tried on a second style that didn't seem as stretchy but alas, they were short, so My Personal Schmoozer found a pair with a longer inseam, and when he brought them to my stall, he said as he did to every other woman in the fitting room, "When you get those on, I'd love to see them on you. I'll give you my honest opinion." Well, the heck that was ever going to happen. I'm fairly certain that I laughed out loud when he said that. Did he really think that I was going to let him see if these jeans had magic in the back pockets?! Upon leaving the fitting room, he asked how I liked them and I told him quite honestly that I am not a fan of stretchy pants to which he replied, "Well, our jeggings don't have a lot of stretch." Jeggings. And so, the search continues.

Sweet Twee

With yet another school year lying in wait ready to ambush my summer and hold my children hostage to their schedules, I find myself reminiscing about my former school days. Oh those were simpler times. How we ever managed to survive without cell phones and thumb drives, I am sure my children will never know. Our  moms were not asked to contribute such luxury items as paper towels, Ziploc bags, Expo markers, hand sanitizer, and reams of copy paper to the classroom community pile. Yes, those were indeed simpler times, and just so you know, back then, 12x18 manila paper actually did grow on trees and was not the endangered species school supply poachers have caused it to become.

A few years ago, my oldest son, Jacob, a sage of a boy in his own right, said to my youngest son, Nathan, who was nervous about starting school, "Enjoy kindergarten! It's so fun! Just know that it's all downhill from there." I wouldn't say it's all downhill from there, but the road does get a little bumpier. I loved kindergarten. My teacher's name was Miss Smajstrla. No lie. I mean really, could she have had a more difficult name for a 5-year old to pronounce...or spell?! With a name like that, who needs vowels?! Impossible name aside, she was the quintessential kindergarten teacher. She was young, beautiful, engaging, and so nurturing. Circle time was magical with the letters of the alphabet coming to life before our very eyes. We all loved Miss Marshmallow, as we called her. She truly set the tone.

Then there was Twee, my first school friend. We always got in line together, ate lunch together, and placed our nap towels next to each other. During nap, we'd whisper secrets to each other while we peeled dried Elmer's glue from that day's craft off each other's fingers until Miss Marshmallow would tell us to be quiet and close our eyes. We were tight like that. One day at the end of lunch, Twee and I were standing in line just after we'd discarded the edible remains of our lunch into the slop can. Apparently, one of the cafeteria ladies was also a pig farmer so she collected all the food scraps to feed to her pigs. Before you ask...no, I did not grow up in the country, but now as I write this, I find myself wondering if the cafeteria lady was truly a pig farmer or if that was our kindergarten urban legend. Anyway, as Twee and I were standing in line patiently waiting for the rest of  our class to join us, Twee's face started to lose it's color and just as she opened her mouth to tell me what I can only assume is that she didn't feel well, her partially digested lunch was projected in my general direction. With lightening quick reflexes, I reacted as only a close friend would. I dropped my Bionic Woman lunch box to the floor and threw out my hands to catch...yes, you read it correctly...to catch Twee's vomit and then I proceeded to tell Miss Marshmallow...and I quote..."I caught most of it!" You can ask me why would I ever do such a vile thing, but I can only theorize, because all these years later (and trust me, I have racked my brain trying to figure this one out), I still am not 100% certain as to what I was thinking. 

Here's what I have decided:

1. I was afraid Twee would have been embarrassed to make such a mess all over the place so I tried to help contain it. 
2. I was concerned that Twee would get in trouble for making such a mess and I wanted to protect her. OR
3. I thought the cafeteria lady would make Twee clean up her mess and I wanted to help my friend, who obviously didn't feel well enough to clean such a big mess.

Regardless of the reason, what it boils down to is that I loved Twee and by golly, I wanted her to know that I had her back. Turns out, she had my back as well. Because she was sick and I had been such a good friend to catch her puke, we both got to go home early that day. 

As the new school year quickly approaches, it's my prayer that my children will not only have the kind of friends who are willing to go above and beyond to help them in their times of need, but that my children will be that kind of  friend as well. 

Tell Me About the Earthworms, George

Two months after George and I married, we relocated to a college town near his office so that I could finish school. George was working an entry level job in a field that was barely related to his degree. I was unemployed but hoping to find a part time position on campus to help with our expenses. To say that we were living on meager means is generous. We only had one car and George needed it for his commute so we had to find a cheap apartment within walking distance to campus in an area where hopefully we would not be raped and pillaged on a weekly basis. For George, the icing on the apartment cake was to find this cheap apartment in an ideal location WITH all bills paid. Yes, he dared to dream the dream.

Because this apartment hunting happened several years ago before the Internet was what it is today, and  because we were in a serious time crunch to get moved before the start of the fall semester, we had to make quick decisions with limited information. So we found our first apartment in our new town and let me just say that it met all of George's expectations but none of mine. I guess you could say that he had a better grip on reality because I felt certain that we could find Barbie's dream townhouse located in a picturesque park setting just on the edge of campus, and of course the rent would be just a small token of George's paycheck. Alas, I'm not sure which rock I'd been living under but I had a rough encounter with Reality, she had that heroin chic look except without the chic.

So our all bills paid close to campus cheap apartment was the stuff of which shanty towns are made. Imagine, if you will a time, when off campus college housing resembled army barracks or better yet, a minimum security prison. Think 1940s but institutional 1940s not Frank Lloyd Wright 1940s. Then picture this same complex about 50 years later with the only improvements being fresh paint in drab dismal colors to camouflage the grime from the previous tenants and the thinnest carpet ever known to man, and now you have our apartment. It, or The Cave as I called it, had cinder block walls which had been painted elephant gray. Now I ask you, if you are going to go the trouble of painting cinder block, why would you paint it gray? The carpet was also the same drab gray and appeared to be original to the building. I won't lie, I cried the day we moved in but I knew this was only temporary. It was only temporary because I would only agree to sign a six month lease. I figured that in six months, we would have time to learn the city and find something better that fit in our budget.

Our ground level apartment held a small surprise for us which we soon discovered after a good soaking rain. You see, while our apartment was technically on the ground level, the parking lot sat just a little higher than our front door and apparently a genius of an engineer designed the parking lot so that the rain runoff would head straight under our front door.The only thing we could do to keep our apartment from flooding was to pile towels at the door to soak up the rain. Well, when the rain subsided and we went to hang the wet towels to dry in our bathroom, we were a little startled to find that our wet towels were now threaded with earthworms. Yes, threaded. The earthworms were half in and half out of the towel and something had to be done. George wanted to throw away the towels but I refused. We were, after all, saving for a nicer place to live and if we threw away the towels, then we'd just have to buy more and surely it would eventually rain again. As a matter of fact, it seemed to rain a lot that fall and each rain brought along a new crop of earthworms. George, who I learned in those first few months of our marriage, does not like earthworms in the slightest and he absolutely refused to touch them. So I made him stand in the bathtub and hold open each towel as I, yes, I pulled each worm free from the towels. There must have been a hundred of those suckers, and I dangled each one in George's face just so I could watch him squirm, and boy did we laugh until I thought we would both pee our pants. 

Yes, that apartment was a dump in every sense of the word, but that is where we began our marriage. While we didn't have much in the way of materialistic things, those newly married months were some of the best times in my life. We were so happy just to be together that all the earthworms in the world couldn't take the joy out of the life we were creating together. It's funny how much less you think you need when you are head over heels in love with someone. 

I Wouldn't Spread That on a Cracker

October invariably leads to Halloween and Halloween always reminds me of one college party in particular. I was a freshman working in one of six campus dining halls. Back then, for the kids working in the dining halls, the dining halls served as our social networking platform. Behind the serving lines, there were friendships forming, people dating, and there were parties...a lot of parties.

So it was October, and the dining halls were all buzzing with the news about the upcoming costume party. This party was being touted as the party to rival all others. It was taking place in two neighboring houses, there was going to be a live band, and hundreds were expected to attend.

A couple of weeks earlier, I had gone out on a date with a co-worker, let's call him Jack (some names have been changed to protect...well, I'll just say it...me). He seemed like a nice enough guy and we'd been chatting for some time, so when he asked me to go see The Last of the Mohicans, I gladly took him up on his offer. Something you should know about me is that I love a good action movie, especially a good war movie. In case you've never seen (or read) The Last of the Mohicans, it takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War. The first of many battle scenes happens early in the movie, and I guess that Jack may have not really enjoyed war movies because he was very concerned that this movie was going to be too violent for my delicate nature. Please understand that I know Jack was just trying to be a gentleman but after I reassured him for the fifth time that I was fine, I started to suspect that maybe, just maybe, it was Jack who was having a hard time with the battle scenes. There was no way I was letting him drag me out of that movie. That movie which is now my absolute favorite movie. That movie which is based on the literary classic by James Fenimore Cooper (I majored in English). That movie which starred the oh so lovely Daniel Day-Lewis, one of my all time favorite actors. No, I wasn't going to let him out of the theater that easily. When I was dating, I wanted my boyfriends to possess the same qualities I wanted in my husband, and if Jack couldn't man up enough to watch a good old fashioned war movie with me then I was certain we didn't have a future together. So after the movie, the date just grew into an awkward mess. We went to dinner, where he continued to apologize for the movie and then he pulled out a plastic gumball machine ring and got down on one knee (no, I'm not kidding) and proposed marriage, albeit jokingly, nonetheless it was creepy. So that was my first and last date with Jack.

Even after our uncomfortable date, Jack wanted me to go to the infamous Halloween party with him, and although I had told him I wanted to go with my brother and some of our friends, he wasn't taking the hint. Jack decided he would try to persuade me to go with him by coming up with a clever costume idea for us to go as a famous couple. So after thinking on it for a few days, he sprung his great idea on me one day at work. Are you ready for this? He wanted to go as Paul Bunyan and he wanted me to go as....wait for it....Babe the Blue Ox because, as he put it, I was a "real babe." Even now, this makes me laugh out loud and it makes me want to train my boys on how to give a woman a real compliment. Before I could even respond to Jack, my good friend Vince, jumped  in the conversation and said, "Man, you don't ask a girl to dress up like an ox! Get outta here!" So as you might have guessed, I didn't go to the party with Jack but we were friends, so I figured we'd see each other there.

When I arrived at the party, it was already starting to get underway.Some people were hanging out and talking in the first house while a U2 cover band played for a crowd in the other house. Some chose to wear costumes and some did not. As I walked into the first house, I couldn't help but notice an overpowering smell of (I bet I know what you're thinking and if so, you're wrong) peanut butter. Yep...you read it right...peanut butter. There in the center of the living room was some yahoo wearing nothing but denim shorts and a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter all over his body, head to toe. Let me tell you this, not only did he look gross, but the smell of sweat mingling with peanut butter was enough to clear a room, plus he was leaving a peanut butter trail every where he went. It gets worse. As I passed Skippy, trying hard not to get any of his peanut butter on my new sweater, I ran into one of the cooks from the dining hall. Cookie, as I will refer to him here, was not a student. He was probably close to 40 and he was three sheets to the wind. He came over to me laughing hysterically, put his arm around me, and began whispering words in my ear that still haunt me to this day. "I scraped Peanut Butter Guy's back with a cracker and ate it." EEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!

Well of course, I ran back to the area where my brother and our friends were talking and shared the news, and just as we finished laughing, my brother looked toward the door and said, "Who the heck is that coming this way?" I immediately looked in the same direction and saw a guy wearing an actual jack-o-lantern as a mask heading straight for me. "It's Jack," I said. To which my brother responded, "Yep, you sure can pick 'em."

I don't know whatever happened to Jack. I like to think that he ended up with a nice girl who prefers Disney movies to war movies and who loves quirky pick up lines. I can only imagine that Jack asked his Jill to dress up as a thief for Halloween because she stole his heart. As far as Skippy goes, I didn't really know that guy but I'm sure he heard every peanut butter joke in the book for the rest of his dining hall days. As for the party itself, it was nothing short of legendary, but I know the guy who hosted the party was cleaning peanut butter trails for weeks.

Environmental Awareness

When my husband, George, gets home from work, he usually comes in the house through the garage. When he gets to the interior garage door that leads into the laundry room, he swings the door open and takes a quick look around before he actually steps foot inside. You see, I have made my husband paranoid, or at least paranoid about coming into our home. I like to say that I am teaching him to be aware of his surroundings. It may seem odd that George should be so cautious about walking into his own home on any given day, but the truth of the matter is George married a prankster and my all time favorite go-to prank is hiding from him, then jumping out and scaring the poo out of him. It's his own fault really. If he didn't scream like a little girl or yell absurdities all the while dancing in place and doing his best bobble head impression, I wouldn't waste my time. Frankly, it's the best laugh of my day.

The game of hiding from loved ones only to jump out and scare them within in an inch of their lives is a game that my mom taught my brother and me when we were kids. Imagine that. One minute Mom would be busy in the kitchen or putting laundry in the dryer and the next minute, she was nowhere to be found. In those moments, I knew Mom was hiding from me, and that at any second, she would pop up from behind my bed or burst out of a closet, scare the daylights out of me, and then we would both crumple over with laughter. It was always fun and unnerving at the same time. I remember one such instance when she went into hiding and I searched the whole house in an effort to beat her at her own game only to come up empty handed. Needing to relieve myself, and feeling confident that she was probably in the garage, I headed to the bathroom, which I had already searched. I went into the bathroom, started to close the door, and as I turned, I found Mom perched on the toilet seat hidden from view by the opened bathroom door. I think she quietly said, "Boo." I know I screamed and it's possible, just possible, in light of where I was, that I may have peed my pants a little. We still laugh about that one.

Mom taught me the fine art of choosing our victims. The bigger the screamer, the better the target. Enter my Uncle Robert. Now Uncle Robert was actually my great uncle so he was an older gentleman and quite easy to catch off guard. He always put on quite the show of hollering and jumping out of his skin any time that we scared him, so of course, he was the obvious target. What I have failed to mention is that in earlier years when Uncle Robert was still a smoker, he suffered not one, not two, but three heart attacks. Yeah, I know we probably shouldn't have been hiding from him but I like to think that it brought him almost as much joy as it brought us. I should also mention that we stopped hiding from him after he had the quadruple bypass and you'll be relieved to know that he lived to be 91 years old and his passing was not the direct result of any of his heart issues.

So now, the not so coveted title of Most Demonstrative Victim falls to my dear sweet George. Oh, I'd love to scare the kids, and I have on occasion, but it's hard to savor the scare high when Nathan is crying or Liam is telling me how angry that makes him. Jacob puts on a good show, and he usually falls to the floor with laughter but I don't like to target him too much because it just doesn't seem sporting. I get Vivie every now and then so she doesn't feel left out, and she thinks it's the funniest thing ever, but George is by far my favorite target. Before you start thinking I'm twisted and mean, let me just say that George has gotten me a time or two (he actually brought me to tears once) but I'm not as jumpy as he is thanks to Mom's Environmental Awareness Program for the Up and Coming Paranoid.

All this to say that for several consecutive months on an almost daily basis, I would hide from George in the laundry room upon his arrival home from a long day at the office. It's reasonable to assume that I would be able to scare him once. It's even probable to think that I would scare him twice, but let me tell you, I scared that man nearly every single time I hid in that same spot for months on end. One day, George decided to push the door open and take a look around the laundry room before he actually entered the house. That decision was life changing for him. This is now his habit and it makes my job a little more challenging, and to be honest, a little more rewarding when I actually score the scare. I keep at it because I would hate for an intruder to scare George and George's initial reaction be his usual jumping in place, arms flailing in all directions, topped off with a shrill scream; however, this might just cause the intruder to fall to the ground with uncontrollable laughter buying George the small amount of time he would need for his fight reflex to kick into gear. Nonetheless, I have been laying low for a while. It might just be time to crank it up a notch.

Save the Books

Today, my 12-year old son, Jacob, started reading To Kill a Mockingbird -- my all time favorite book. I read it for the first time when I was about 11 years old and I think I have probably read it a dozen times since then. It always amazed me that Harper Lee's first and only novel is an American classic taught in classrooms around the world. Can you imagine your first attempt at writing a book and not only do you win the Pulitzer Prize but you are considered to be among the greatest of American novelists? Lee certainly didn't need a mulligan, did she?

I have always loved reading, but this is the first book that I read that I truly devoured. It was the first time I read a book that I just couldn't put down and I was so sad to leave it when I finished reading the last page. So for about a year now, I have been encouraging Jacob to read the book in the hopes that he will enjoy it as much as I have over the years. I guess the title threw him because he was reluctant to pick up the book. Thus began my oh so subtle campaign (I took cues from Sam I Am--think Dr. Seuss, not Sean Penn) to persuade him to give it a try.

We got a puppy last summer, and I insisted that we name her Scout, and even after I told Jacob that the name came from the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird, he still seemed uninterested even though he enjoys reading. I had high hopes that it would be required reading in sixth grade because it was required when I was in sixth grade, but apparently, they don't really teach literature in sixth grade in this school district (don't get me started). At the end of the school year, I suggested that he and I read it together over the summer. His response was simple, "Nah." Now that seventh grade has started, I hoped he would be getting a required reading list that included my beloved book. Not so much. Again, even though he is in advanced English and has a separate reading class, he will not be studying the finer aspects of literature. This year is all about grammar, writing, and building vocabulary, which are all important things; however, by now I was well versed in symbolism, themes, irony and all those wonderful layers that unfold when delving deep into literature. I can't help but think standardized testing has played its ugly hand here, but I digress.

Desperate to get this book on Jacob's radar, I decided to loan him my copy weeks ago when he was looking for something to read. Nothing. My last ditch effort came when I decided to add the movie to our Netflix queue. You see, the kids and I have a long standing ritual of reading a book and then watching the movie counterpart. We then discuss how the two compared and which one we enjoyed more. The book always wins. When Jacob saw me updating the queue, he insisted that I not add the movie just yet because he eventually planned to read the book, but not right now. Then out of the blue today, he finally decided to crack it open. I was just giddy...that is, until I saw Jacob dog ear one of the pages to mark his place. Oh no he di'int! Oh yes he did! I mean who is raising this kid?!

When I was in elementary school, I had the greatest librarian. Her name was Mrs. Barksdale and she influenced my love of books almost as much as my own mother did. When our class went to the library, Mrs. Barksdale made all of the students line up at the sink so we could wash our hands before touching the books. Then we all chose our seats and the one lucky student who sat in the secretly marked chair was allowed to select his book first and read it while lounging in the whimsically painted claw foot tub filled with colorful throw pillows that sat center stage in Mrs. Barksdale's library. (Alright, now that I have children, the idea of allowing the kids to lounge in a pile of throw pillows gives me pause what with head lice being so prevalent in school settings.Yikes! That being said, the rest of library time was nothing short of enchanting.)

Not only did Mrs. Barksdale make library time special, but she went to great lengths to teach us how to handle and care for books, how to really appreciate books. She was a lovely woman but you didn't want to cross her. So watching Jacob dog ear that page in my most favorite book, my inner Mrs. Barksdale wanted to smack the back of his head, but she and I restrained ourselves. I said in a horror stricken tone, "Jacob, what are you doing!?" To which he so innocently replied, "What? I don't have a bookmark." It was as though we had never even met.

Just what goes on in those school libraries these days? Next thing you know, the kids will all have ebook readers and the crinkling sounds of a book's spine opening, the wonderful tactile experience of turning the pages, and the warm yellowing hues of aging books will be meaningless to upcoming generations. The horror, the horror.

Basketball Courting

I have never been athletically inclined. I'm not that coordinated, I don't enjoy sweating, and I am convinced that the whole runner's high theory is just a big scam similar in nature to a snipe hunt. So no, I never played sports in school. I took a dance class in lieu of a p.e. class in high school, and I took health psychology to opt out of my p.e. requirement in college. I enjoy watching sports, but I am about as athletic as a three toed sloth; therefore, during the fall semester of my freshman year in college, when three cute boys asked if I would round out their intramural co-ed basketball team, obviously I said yes.

Newsflash: I didn't really think through this grand plan of mine to hang out with these three cute boys. I shudder at the number of times I have made a fool of myself all for a pretty face, but I digress. I genuinely wish my present day self could go back and knock some serious sense into that goofy girl who thought that the only girls playing intramural sports would be the ones just wanting to flirt with cute boys. Forget about the notion that there are dedicated athletes with tremendous ability playing intramural sports. I'm laughing at my foolishness right now. (Oh how it hurts me to think back on this. There truly is no place for pride in this narrative).

When my brother got wind of my basketball team (once he stopped laughing and regained his composure), he asked, "When is your first game? There is no way I'm going to miss this."

My team and I had just a few practices before our first game. My best friend, Jen, was also on the team because I coerced her into playing so we would have 5 players. She was my athletic kindred spirit, thus you can understand why she and I were only getting more and more nervous as we realized these boys were hoping we would actually win a few games. Oh, you mean the goal of playing sports is to improve your technique and hopefully win some games? It's not about looking cute and getting asked out on a date?

Before Jen and I could think of a way out of this predicament that I had allowed my hormones to create, the day of our first game arrived. True to his word, my brother, Tad, met us at the gym and not only did he not miss my first game but he brought his girlfriend, and a handful of our friends from work to cheer me on to victory, or at least that's what I told myself. I pretended not to hear Tad when he laughingly asked the cute boy who was both a teammate and the coach, "Have you seen Allison play?"

There I was, in the gym, stretching and warming up my muscles. I had my hair pulled back in a cute ponytail, and I was working on my game face which included full makeup, by the way. Don't all serious athletes have vanity issues? Suddenly, I looked up, and I kid you not, just as the radio in my head began playing "We Will Rock You," the other team strutted onto the court. These girls looked as though they had just left their day jobs as Justice Leaguers. I knew there was no way I was going to walk off that court without suffering some form of humiliation, but I had no idea that it would be reminiscent of The Bad News Bears. Jen and I, or maybe I should say Lucy and Ethel, struggled through the first period, we were out of breath by the end of the second period, but I think the sugar hit the fan in the third period, when Glenda The Not So Good Giant, decided to guard me. She was all over my stuff, standing head and shoulders above me with her chest pushed right in my face. I couldn't breathe, and in all honesty, I didn't realize that her aggressiveness was considered fair play. I thought she was just being rude. In that moment, I snapped. It's as if I thought we were in some women's prison status sqaubble and I was not going to be her punk. I put my hands on her ample chest, and I shoved her so hard it knocked her off  balance, all the while I was yelling for her to get out of my face and back the heck off of me.

The rest of the game was just a blur, but I will tell you, we lost significantly. We withdrew our team from the season, my brother had some great laughs at my expense, and while none of those cute boys ever asked me to play on any of their teams again (nor did any of them ask me out on a date) we remained close friends for the duration of my college years. And that, was the start and finish of my not so lucrative basketball career.