My brother is an eighth grader in a not-particularly-competitive basketball league for his middle school. I, on the other hand, have been known to yell “sports!” at people on campus who are walking at particularly aggressive speeds. Many a rower or field hockey player has attempted to explain the enigma of modern sports to me, but to no avail. I am, in essence, a non-athletic regular person and as NARP-y as they come.

While clearly I’m not the most educated big sister in the realm of competitive sports-ing, I have made an effort to support my brother’s athletic “career” from afar. While home from break, I figured it couldn’t hurt to go to one of his games toward the end of the year. In an attempt to blend in with the regular spectators, I began to shout commentary as I saw fit. The following is a list of comments I truly made during the competition (viewer discretion is advised):

1. Bouncity bounce!

2. Sir, you should wear a mouthguard. Do you know how easy it is to break your braces if a basketball hits them? So easy, sir. I was even a NARP at your age and I can tell you it hurts.

3. Tall person in the middle seems to be restrained by a taller person on the opposite team who is also in the middle?

4. Bounce bounce shoot. Yay.

5. You go, small kid. Don’t let your lack of height get you down. Dribble dribble.

6. Yay brother!

7. Can I buy a pretzel? Do they sell pretzels here?

8. *upon returning from pretzel buying* Oh, we switched sides. This is inconvenient. Why do we do this?

9. That tall kid has such an unfair advantage. He just reaches up and the ball flies to him. He’s like a large brick with arms that can shoot. So really not like a brick in any way.

10. Dribble dribble pass dribble dribble pass back dribble dribble pass dribble dribble pass. That seemed pretty useless. I feel like we just did the same thing a few times.

11. Is that a technique? Did they practice that strategy? That was a terrible strategy.

12. Pass to the tall brick guy! Isn’t that how we’re getting all the points?

13. There’s just so much running in this game. That can’t be fun.

14. That was insanity. The ball just bounced onto the stands. That can’t be safe.

15. Ouch. Basketball to the head. Interesting way to die.

16. He needs ice. We have no ice. No one in this entire basketball team has ice. I guess this is how it ends. Sorry, kid.

17. That’d be a really weird obituary. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations for an ice machine to the school.

18. It’s over now?

19. That wasn’t as bad as I anticipated.

20. It appears we’ve won. By many points. Is this fun for us?

21. I feel like this game could only get worse the older you get.

In summary? Sports are confusing. CYO boys’ basketball? Even more so.