Sidebar

 

She’d been deformed since birth, which is why everything she wrote was in shorthand.   That’s the one hand that worked.  She was a court recorder for the local basketball team.  Although her desk was courtside, she had to quickly slide it up and down the court, following the movement of the players, in order to not miss any of the action.  By the end of regulation play she was exhausted.

Although completely unintentional, she always had a bottle of Coca-Cola on her desk.  It was her drink of choice.  Unbeknownst to her and the general public, the Coke people viewed that as product placement, and so they paid the team $31,000 a year as long as her Coke kept showing up in the television coverage of the game.

This resulted in the general manager of the team always picking up the tab for her lunchtime Cokes.

“It’s on me.” He would say, smiling.

Here’s the thing: His name was Gary and Gary very much enjoyed his whiskey.  Consequently, whenever the other team was about to score and all the fans and TV camera’s were looking at the far basket, Gary would slip a little of her Coke in with his whiskey, giving a whole new meaning to sidebar.

Note:
Any ref reading this would site me for traveling, double dribbling and stepping out of bounds. I couldn't blame them.  This entire story has been a feeble attempt at blending legal proceedings with a sporting event.  If there were a penalty box for basketball I'd be in it.  It wouldn't surprise me if they suspend my Blog license. 

I just heard the buzzer.
        Game over.