Bruce Vain

I am a couch potato.

This fact was brought home to me in a painful way a few months back as I watched the NBA playoffs. I was lying on the couch, eating Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream (which, by the way, is one of the few perfect foods God placed on this or any other planet) and getting angry at the San Antonio Spurs for missing what I – in my infinite sports wisdom – thought were ridiculously easy shots.

(And the fact that the Spurs won the title, sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in four straight games, doesn’t factor into this at all; like any other male, I don’t want the team I’m rooting for to just WIN, but to absolutely destroy and humiliate the other team. Anybody can win; it takes a real champion to make your opponent cry like Jimmy Swaggart.)

Anyway, at one point in the game the announcer said the Spurs were getting tired. I scoffed at this idea. These men make millions of dollars every year to do three things: run, shoot a basketball, and be tall. How could they not be in shape?

Not to sound immodest, but I used to play a little basketball, myself. I vividly remember one pivotal game in the local 12-and-Under Recreational League championship game, when I caused the entire gym to gasp collectively at my athletic prowess when I made a move so amazing that my shorts fell down.

So I’ve got some skills, basketball-wise. I decided to vent my anger at the Spurs (they only won the game by nine points; there was absolutely NO crying by the Cavaliers after that game, which frustrated me) by calling a few of my buddies to play some basketball and relive my former shorts-dropping glory.

There we were: Eight guys, all in our late 30s or early 40s, playing basketball in a church gym, toned bodies hidden by a multitude of braces and Ace bandages and a protective yet aerodynamic layer of fat, the smell of sweat and Aspercreme wafting off the court. For some reason, none of our wives wanted to come watch.

Once the game got started, I realized it had been a LOOONG time since I’d played basketball. In fact, I don’t think what we played was actually basketball. I’ll call this new game pseudoball.

In the game I remembered playing long ago, the court wasn’t nearly as large as the one we played on. In pseudoball, the court is too damn long. You get out of breath just getting to half-court.

You have to run a lot in pseudoball, too. I don’t remember a lot of running in basketball, when I was younger. You were here, you were there, you shot the ball. Running really didn’t enter into the equation.

But running is a big part of this new game. You have to run all the time. You run before you get the ball. You run after you get the ball. You continue to run long after you’ve passed out from exhaustion.

Shooting takes a lot more effort in pseudoball than it did in basketball, too. They’ve done something to the ball. Oh, sure, it LOOKS like a regular basketball, but it’s obviously not, because it got heavier and heavier as the game went on. Near the end of the game, the ball wouldn’t even get near the rim when I shot it – it would just sail harmlessly through the air and out of bounds.

I asked one of my friends if he noticed how heavy the ball had gotten. He didn’t answer me directly, because he was sucking on an oxygen tank at the time, but I think he wiggled his eyebrows in agreement with me.

And this new game we invented has a lot – I mean a LOT – of jumping in it, too. I know for a fact I never jumped when I played basketball in my younger days. I got rebounds, sure, but I didn’t have to jump for them. Hop a little, maybe, but not jump.

In pseudoball, you jump ALL THE TIME. Not just straight up, either. You must jump forward, backward and sideways, because the player you’re guarding (or who is guarding you) won’t stand still. If the distance you have to travel is less than 30 feet, your teammates expect you to spring to your destination at the speed of light.

“Why weren’t you in his face?” one of my teammates demanded, after the guy I was supposed to be guarding drained a 107-foot jumper. I told him I was busy having a heart attack at the time.

“Man, what a couch potato you are,” he said. I suddenly remembered that I never had liked this guy, and I was secretly glad when, 20 minutes later, his Ace bandage let go and tripped him up, causing him to skin his knees on the court.

When I got home, I lowered my aching body into a tub of hot water and soaked for two days. That’s when I realized I must be in fantastic shape, because I had WAY more muscles than I realized. Unfortunately, every single one of them hurt.

It’s hard for me to accept being such a couch potato, because I used to be very active in sports. The past few years, though, it’s just been easier to watch something on television than to go out and do it.

I’ve made a resolution. I’ll never again watch something on television just to be doing something. If I don’t like whatever’s on, I’ll go outside and get some fresh air. Walk around a bit. Maybe do a little bit of jogging. I might even try to play pseudoball again.

I’m gonna do it. Start exercising again, get in shape, be more active.

Right after Wheel of Fortune goes off.

Redlemon

I'm very fond of this line.

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I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Bruce Vain

Thanks!