Yesterday I played basketball at the gym. Between games, a few of us were shooting around, waiting for another game to start. In these situations, custom says that you return the ball to any person who makes his or her shot. If the shot is missed, the ball gets to be shot by the rebounder. And so we dance.

Obviously, these situations favor good shooters, and because I had made 10 or so three pointers in a row, one of the guys waiting for a miss started to get frustrated. First, he attempted to goal-tend one of my shots (jump up and grab the ball as it descended down into the hoop), but he missed and the ball swished through the net anyway. After I drained another, insteading of giving me the ball back, he thew it about 4 feet to my right. This particular tactic is used on me a lot. It's just a 'subtle' way of saying, you're taking too long here, and it usually is done with selfish, but not overtly malicious intent.

When guys do that to me, I make it my common practice to try and catch the ball (wherever it may be thrown), stare into their eyes, and then make another shot without looking at the hoop. Which is exactly what I (successfully) did in this case. My new friend responded by throwing the ball 10 feet past me. I tried the same thing from there and missed by a hair. My way of conceeding that I'd had my fair turn. What can I say, maybe 15 in a row is one too many.

He wordlessly took the ball, went across the gym and started shooting at another hoop. Who is this guy? The antichrist? What the heck?! Whatever. I got another ball and started shooting with it. About five minutes later, my new friend came back to the original side of the court and made a shot from just inside the half-court line. Impressive. The ball rolled right to me, so I looked him in the eye and rolled the ball just out of his reach. Take that.

First, he looked at me a little quizzically--but only for a second--then his expression darkened to one that said something along the lines of, "I'm going to murder you and bury your body in a shallow grave on the outskirts of town." Hmm. Maybe it isn't my job to be an instructor of moral development for every person in the world. I said nothing and waited to see what would happen. He finally asked, "What the *&^% did you do that for?"

Apparently, not everyone is familiar with cause and effect. Maybe he should go to college.