One Good Shove Deserves A Hammer

Yesterday's public safety notice advised you not to have a swine flu party. I should have included more specific directives. At the swine flu party you don't have, be sure that you don't serve a beef roast, Nestle's chocolate chip cookie dough, or Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate. That will save you from an E. coli and salmonella cocktail. And if worrying about your health gives you a headache, take that acetaminophen now, before it is taken off the market. You can always go to Tennessee for a new liver, unless Steve Jobs needs another one.

Today's safety notice is directed at high school basketball players. When you are playing at open gym, which means scrimmaging against your own teammates with absolutely no referees and only the honor system to punish decapitation after the fact, it is not advised to shove a player who is just standing with the ball after beating you out for a rebound. That is, don't put both of your hands on his shoulders and shove him so hard that he is laid out flat on his back, just for the sake of shoving him, because you are mad that he beat you, shoving him without any attempt to get the ball, but just to intimidate him. Because Karma is a big ol' b*tch, and when you think you are going to shoot that loose ball you just scooped up, a dude from the shovee's team will run up behind you and hammer that ball out of your hands that you have just cocked above your head to shoot a sweet, sweet, unchallenged jump shot. The dude will jam that ball so hard that the follow-through of his hand might just whack you on your empty noggin, making you cry 'foul', even though your constant elbowing and holding and slapping and shoving goes unchallenged. You may think it was an accident, but the smirking that ripples across the players behind your back says otherwise.

Really. Take that advice. Because knocking someone down just to be a punk will garner you tenfold in whackings and dirty looks and loathing.