Free Throw Line

Ran into a couple of guys on our way into a job at a prison.

Yeah. 

It takes awhile to get through the front door. There are a few security gates to pass through and there’s a lot of waiting. We figured out that all three of us were in our 57th year, and while we started talking about the start of our construction careers, we somehow wound up talking about playing basketball.

Which ended up being a conversation about how tight and short our shorts were in those days.

Thinking about it now, we were basically in our underwear out there.

We laughed about it, but I won the discussion by admitting that I never had hair under my arms.

“So I would stand at the foul line like this,” I said, and I demonstrated by holding my arms up just high enough so my armpits weren’t exposed.

I got the huge laugh I was looking for, but they were also flabbergasted.

“You didn’t want the girls to see your bald armpits?”

“It was embarrassing,” I said. “I figured that they would imagine that I hadn’t gone through puberty yet.”

More laughter.

“Why the hell are you telling us this?”

“I’m painting a picture,” I said. “I was six-feet tall, 135 pounds, wearing green underwear and afraid to raise my arms.”

“It’s amazing what we worried about as kids,” one of the guys said. “When I had to go to the free throw line I was so scared because everyone was watching me that I worried about pissing my pants.”

“Did you ever make a free throw?” I asked.

“One, I think,” he said.

“Did you ever really piss your pants?” The other guy asked.

“Twice.”

We made our way through the last security door.

“So, how old were you when you finally sprouted hair?”

“That’s the best part,” I said. “I never have!”

That brought a howl.

“You must’ve been a real Romeo,” the first guy said.

“I could shoot free throws without pissing myself.”

So, that’s how we passed the time waiting to get into a prison.

Then we passed the caged men.

There was a man screaming. Non-stop. 

“Know what happened to him?” The second guy asked.

He’d been on the job for awhile so I figured he was going to give me an inside scoop.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He killed his girlfriend.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, for laughing at him.”

I needed to hear the rest of the story.

“Why was she laughing at him?”

“No pit hair,” he said.

Walked right into it.