Brand New Blog! Oh, and Febreezeiolis.....

Ill keep this introduction brief, because Im sure your all eager to read my awesome material. My name is Carlin, I attend FP Walshe High School in Fort Macleod, and amoung other things, I sit the bench for the FP Walshe Flyers basketball team. This blog will begin by detailing various misadventures that come from riding the pine.

Well, now that we’re back in the daily swing of things, its time to reflect on the epic nature of our last tournament. The first day went a little like this: after braving about 6 vehicle rollovers in the Southern Albertan winter wonderland, we casually enter Willow Creek Composite High School. Well, when I say we, I don’t mean the starters. Andrew, McCauley, even Zach and Cletus had their heads to the floor, apparently in deep thought about how to efficiently draw a foul without looking like a pansy. No not the starters; it was I and the other benchers who waltzed in like we owned the place. My reason for this is simple: My energy has to be devoted to looking imposing. When you don’t have the luxury of showing off skill, skill has to basically come out of your sweat glands. Body language is the keystone of being a benchwarmer.

As far as actual basketball, we came in 4^th place. But notice how I said the tournament was epic in the last paragraph, and I meant it. It was filled with sword fights, defense chants, and discussions on the nature of Febreeze. I didn’t come away with detailed knowledge of the next play, but what I did come away with fresh smelling (although soggy) shoes.

Saturday reminded me of something straight out of The Breakfast Club. After a noon-game (which we lost, and blamed on the fact that we hadn’t woken up yet) we were treated to the wonderful privilege of staying in Claresholm for another 5 hours (I really brushed up on my sarcasm lately). So, I was in a bit of a pickle. I had to replace the warm embrace of a basketball bench with something else in that god forsaken school. So we embarked upon a journey to save our cozy buttocks.

Courtesy of Zach, we found a secret room in an ancient and obviously untouched library. This secret room was referred to on a sign as “the Hawks Nest”. To my surprise, there were no bird droppings, and no angry hawk dive-bombed Tyler’s face when we entered (unfortunately). Eventually, probably due to my charm and animal magnetism, the whole team eventually relocated to this room, which contained two couches and the same amount of leg room as the back seat of a Smart Car (if the Smart Car had a back seat……..think about it!). Now, since rooms generally get stuffy they have people in them, the team numbers dwindled down to 3: Tyler, Alec, and I.

Now, for some reason I can’t explain, none of us left that room. Perhaps it was a sick competition to see who had the highest tolerance for low oxygen; perhaps it was the whole Breakfast Club vibe, where like John and Claire, we thought we had some non-existent principal breathing down our necks. Either way, instead of developing an exit strategy, we found a minty-fresh can of Febreeze in one of the drawers. Or maybe it wasn’t minty; I couldn’t exactly pin down the scent, although it did get pinned down my nostrils multiple times. It really does bring a new definition to the phrase “trigger-happy”. Anyway, I’m sure you can guess what we attempted to do with this Febreeze, given the fact that all of us, as a rule, don’t read the back of aerosol cans (honestly, with the tiny printing, who would?). Soon we realized that it actually was intended for fabrics, as opposed to shoes…..or skin.

By the two hour mark, we had lost all connection to all logical thoughts. We stopped wondering why no one cared that we were not present at an actual basketball game, and started wondering why the Morpheus get-up I purchased at Fields earlier that day (don’t ask) wasn’t giving off the same vibe when I wore it as it did for Lawrence Fishburne in the Matrix movies. I could never really pin that down either. Is it true that the clothes make the man? I used to think that, but these days that theory is in doubt.

Soon after, once the “Febreezeiolis effect” (I’ve just coined that term, trademarks are coming) wore off, we discovered something else to keep us amused. And no, it wasn’t the mountains of books that surrounded us, or even the lonely workstation computer in the corner, it was something even more simplistic. It was a piece of the magazine rack that was wooden and formed the general shape of a sword. The particular name of that piece of wood escapes me, but that didn’t matter once I picked it up and realized that it makes a whoosh sound when I swing it.

What followed was about an hour of perfecting the same 3 repetitive moves with Alec holding the other sword. We figured we would do it the Hollywood way, which is to perfect these moves until they are so fast they actually look badass. By the end we were drawing glances from the other side of the portal to the “real dimension” (read: from outside the library). The best part: some of these glances actually came from the fairer sex, and no, they weren’t “What are these idiots doing?” glances, they were “Wow, they’re actually pretty good” glances. Benchwarmers: 1, Starters: 0.

It’s like I said, when you sit the bench, body language is the name of the game.