Another Ben Concussion

Last night, I suffered a brain injury. Oh no rescrolling.

And the last time I had a concussion was when Frogman happened.

I forgot how did you get the Frogman concussion?

I was playing basketball and got a concussion that morning playing pickup basketball with Frogman and last night. So now as I get older, I still love pickup basketball. But you have to be super careful because when you get to be my age, you know, you realize you're on borrow time, like you're playing pickup basketball.

Beyond the point.

Where you should like I could have an achilles or a knee injury or the next big injury I have. It's like I'm done forever. You're what we would call high risk, very high risk. The beauty is there is a guy that I play with who's significantly older than me.

Yeah, that's great.

Occasionally you hear stories a guy's playing another six yeah, seven, he's like what. There's a guy I played with who's a retired Southwest Airlines pilot and he's sixty three. And when I first started getting matched up with this guy, I was like, man, this is depressing for me. They're like, why don't you guys guard each other? I was like, oh no, it's like that. And so at first I was like, I'm gonna take it easy on this guy.

I was like, God, you gotta dominate from the jump.

Yeah, and so so anyways, but at my age, I love basketball. I just want to play and not get hurt. So the main thing I don't do is I avoid the areas where there are the propensity to roll an ankle, like in the paint. I'm not hard charging into the paint, jumping up as high as I can to come down with a rebound, because that's where all the feet are.

Yeah, you know what I mean. I want to roll my ankle, and if you jump, you just want to jump straight up a little bit.

He's barely just like you can't even fit in like a playing card under my shoe.

Right.

What sucks is when someone wants to get a they want a sky for a rebound over you. Yeah, yeah, man, And you know there. I've had some bad injuries. The worst injury I ever got playing pickup basketball was our buddy Travi.

You were at that game, right, yeah. He had hit two straight threes on.

Me, and so I could tell he was about to shoot another three, and my teammates are going dude, and so I'm like aggressively out on him, going dude, just do anything, Just pass the ball, just don't try to shoot another three on me.

I can't let you hit three in a row.

And so I was right up on him, and so he picked the ball up and was like trying to create space, and he hit me right in my mouth with his elbow. This is what created poop tooth, right, yeah, yeah, snap my front tooth in half right there on the court. And it was since my brother had knocked out my tooth when I was in school for sneaking his car out, it was already like a cosmetic fake tooth, uh huh.

Actually there's one or two guys that play in both games.

But there's one guy that occasionally plays who he sets off my injury radar. Not because he does anything wrong or anything. He's a phenomenal athlete, but he's one of those guys that's so athletic he can't control what is about to happen.

He's just exploding out of a cannon on every play.

Yes, like he's got explosiveness, and so he can I mean, he is a phenomenon. I thought, like last night before we played, I was like, how old are you? I thought he was gonna say twenty nine. He goes forty four. I was like, oh my god. And so this guy could jump. He can dunk easily, be wanted to get, just jump up in the air as high as he wants. He's quick, he's fast, he could guard anybody on the

He wasn't even my guy, and he just slid into me, and like.

You have to be aware of where he's going to be, just because he's wildly athletic, and it's you know, he's just a really good athlete. Yeah, there's a lot of feet and arms and things there that could injure you. And so I for what I want with old man basketball, I just want predictability. The more I've played with you, the more I know what you're gonna do. I'm like, that's great, dude. I hope you have a fun night. If you score sixty points on me, that's awesome for you.

I hope you have that. But I'm not.

We're not playing for the World championship, and I just don't want to get hurt. And so the typically the guys I match up with are not real mobile, just like I'm not. It's a good matchup, right, So last night we just started playing and the guy who's a really great athlete, was on the other team, and he was guarding the best player on our team. And that guy, the best player in my team, faked a shot, and so I turned around because I thought he was gonna shoot.

So I'm waiting for a rebound.

I'm not jumping, I'm not moving, I'm just boxing out, waiting to see if I can get a rebound offensive rebound. Meanwhile, he pump faked and then attacked the basket kind of right where I was, okay, And so I was turned around to the play that was happening.

That's shocking, right, And remember.

What I told you KT, when you're on defense, always see your man in the ball. So the super athletic guy is guarding this other really good player on our team, and they get up way up high in the air. And the guy who's super athletic probably got up a foot higher than the other guy.

That's just how he rolls.

Well, it just so happens that he came down with full power, accidentally, not intentional at all, and hit me right in the top of my head with his elbow.

Oh that sounds so painful.

It does.

It hurts so bad.

It was like getting hit with like a baseball bat, like a wooden baseball back god, and I they told me what I said was oh f this, and I just I just or oh f no, and I just walked off into this other part of this place we were playing and.

Went and laid down. Oh no, and you don't remember?

And it well, I got my bell rung, Dude, I got it wrong. And it was not anyone's fault. It was just an accident, super good athlete just having an elbow me elbowed me in the top of my skull. But they they wouldn't let me drive home, so I had to uber. I can't remember you're supposed to lay down when you get a concussion or now I think you're supposed to, like just not supposed to fall asleep, okay.

Have you noticed how few frogs?

That's what you said from the next room, like, Hey, what is he saying about frogs? But I'm like whatever, I got my bell rung, But man, I'm still feeling it, like I'm a little groggy a little dizzy.

It's a little weird. Where was this what part of time? Fristco?

Oh okay, so getting an uber home wouldn't No, I wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad at all.

You can't meet your car this morning. I had to go get my car on my way into work.

Wow.

Yeah, crazy, right, that is very crazy. And then and this is what your fifth concussion? It felt like you've had a bunch.

I had seen two or three of them when you got one at the Gay Lord when he chair fell or something that's a long time ago. I don't remember it.

I don't remember that.

Was that the one where then we turned around and saw the dude from Arrested Development.

Jeffrey Tambor. I remember Jeffrey Tambor. I think he can cuss to you.

There was one time I was playing softball and I slid into third base and I slid into someone's knee hit me right in the top of my nose and my cardinals and my nose is still facing the wrong way.

Wow. If you were.

To be cocaine, then I snorted, you'd go on that adventure and see that's not equal. So yeah, I guess I probably had five concussions, maybe six.

You had none one in elementary. It was a minor one though.

I was at a party in high school and I was sitting on the couch and a speaker that was mounted up high in the living room fell on my head. And I was just sitting on the couch listening to depeche Mode or whatever. And then suddenly everything was like and I was looking around and everyone was looking at me the shock, you know, the look of a shock and horror.

They're like, oh my god, are you okay.

I'm like what And then there was just a speaker on my shoulder. Oh like, it didn't hit It hit my shoulder and my head at the same time. If it had hit square on my head, I probably would have just died. I thought you were gonna say you were at a party and saw me get headbutted.

I did see that. So what happened was we were playing the.

Game Chase, the quarters game Chase, and I think I think Ben had had a few.

I had had a few. And then there was this guy in our high school.

He was like he was he developed really quickly, so he was like it was like a thirty year old model hanging out with high school kids. And he walked out and Ben had had That was the night you swallowed the quarter, right, yeah, excellently swallowed quarter while we.

Were playing Chase.

While we were playing Chase, and so Ben went outside because he was like, God, why did that happen? And then this guy walked out saw Ben and it was just like a movie and a moment in a movie, like a high school party movement in a movie. And he just said or something and then he headbutted Ben and then walked off. He just headbutted me for the sake of headbutting. I mean, it's just you know, something

So weird? And then I looked at Ben was laid out flat in the yard. You also saw me get a concussion. I may have had like seven or eight. You've got a lot of concussions. The causes that lobotomy left