Game 7: An Upset for the Ages?!

Here's what I said to the wife of one of my teammates upon showing up at the gym last night: "For the first time in a long time, I'm really not looking forward to playing basketball tonight."

Our 0-6, relatively sorry excuse for a team was scheduled to take on an apparent juggernaut, the 6-0 Hickory Hoosiers. They've beaten everyone, including the teams that had beaten us by 50+. And it became apparent about an hour before tip-off that we were likely to only have six guys in our rotation; so not only were we sure to be getting our asses kicked, but it was going to happen with only one person to sub off the bench.

My entire day seemed to be an appropriate precursor to this late night massacre (9:30pm game time). I felt like shit for most of Wednesday. After about an hour of work, my recent on-again off-again symptoms of discomfort all came on at once: a bit of headache, a bit of abdominal pain and what seemed to be a bit of a fever to go along with the usual fatigue that's caused by my regular lack of sleep.

You know you're not right (at least I do) when you go to Burger King for lunch and not even that sounds good. It wasn't until 3:00pm that I finally forced myself to eat something. It didn't really do the trick then either.

Things didn't get much better after work. My wife convinced me it would be a good night to go out to eat as a family, which we rarely do. But what are the fucking odds that we'd end up at the same restaurant as my brother-in-law, the table right next to his, as he's out having a birthday dinner with his girlfriend? That insured that I was to be primarily ignored over the next 60 minutes or so. My wife was understandably more interested in talking to her brother, and his mere presence for some reason makes my kids think they don't have to listen to a fucking word their parents say. It was not a good night to be the child cop.

I also received a heavy dose of criticism (it was called 'bullshit' actually) for saying that I wasn't going to be ordering anything to eat or drink. I still wasn't feeling well, I'd just forced down a sandwich about three hours earlier, and I was going to be playing basketball a couple of hours later. It made sense. It probably saved us $20. What's the problem?

So after a couple more hours of running around with the family, it finally came time to head to the gym and take our beating.

Game 7: July 15 vs. Hickory Hoosiers

What I failed to say in the opening when I quoted my lack of motivation just before gametime was that only one side of the gym was populated. There were our six guys and our one fan, but no one else (other than the now-infamous scorekeeper).

The referees filed in a few minutes later, but once the clock hit exactly 9:30 I heard what I never expected to hear during this basketball season: "You guys win."

The vaunted Hickory Hoosiers didn't show, giving us a rather thankless win ... but a win nonetheless. Here's my theory: These guys close the season with two straight against us, so they've already beaten everyone else. All they need to do is win one of the last two to clinch the title. My guess is that these arrogant fucks who shouldn't even be in a C league anyway decided that they didn't want to strain one of their vagina muscles during an otherwise meaningless 9:30 game.

Our six players enjoyed the friendly competition of several games of three-on-three until we were kicked out of the gym. But I'm pretty sure the assholes from Hickory will show up next week to mop the floor with our asses, then take their championship shirts and ride off on their gay ponies.

Final Score: I don't know. It might be 1-0; it might be 100-0. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm not sure of the forfeit rules. I only know that we win, mother fucker.
SJI Contribution (my postgame recollection of it): Zero, but only because there was no opening tip. I was clearing going to be on fire, as illustrated when I hit my first three shots in three-on-three (two 2s and a three).
Record: 1-6

Next game: July 22 vs. Hickory Hoosiers.