Everyday at work before I do the print run, I take an extra piece of paper I used to make the cover of the day's newsletter and I toss it in the trash can from the farthest point in the room.
I don't allow myself to do anything else until I make the shot. I always make it, but believe me, it's not always on the first try. Then I make excuses for myself.
"I didn't crumble the paper right."
"The refrigerator was in the way."
"Too much wind." (You know how that indoor gust can blow just at the last possible second now!)
Then when I do make it, I say to myself:
"I shoulda gone pro."
One of my favorite things to do at the Y when I had a membership was to go to the basketball court and practice half-court shots. My reasoning was that someone has to be able to make that dramatic, game-ending shot.
Anyone can dunk. Well I can't and I'm 6'4" as I'm magnetically attached to the ground.
I could actually make multiple half-court shots consecutively. It's really not that hard.
Now three-quarter court shots, those take more practice.
As a kid in my Va. Beach townhouse, I used to take two paper bags, putting one by the front door and another in the kitchen and have my own big-game going.
Picture a kid on a Saturday afternoon in his PJ's on his L-shaped, make-shift basketball court, crumpled up piece of paper (or if I wanted some aerodynamic long-shots, crumpled-up aluuminum foil). I had a full-repertoire of shots: the bank shot, dunk, long-range jumper. My team always won, though I missed some shots when my parents would come in the front door. I even did my own play-by-play.
"He evades his sister, who's trying to pin him down and claw him with her fingernails, jumps over the table, air-dribbles around the chair, three seconds left, 2, 1... shoots, scores!!!!!!"
Yeah I was an abnormal child.
I'd do the same things outside with all the sports I played when I couldn't get a game going. Football, baseball, basketball, bike racing (before my dirt bike was stolen). I'd ride around my neighborhood like it was the Tour de France. I'd get a friend to recreate games with me if I could. I'd play coin basketball and paper football on tables at school.
I'd try to do 360s when I'd be watching Olympic figure skating, speed-skating on the tile floor. My friends in elementary school--we'd draw football fields and play pencil football. We could do pretty good renditions of the team logos and end zones too.
I was the loony one on road trips too...reading road signs, menus, anything. My parents have the story of me reading Minneapolis off a road sign when I was 2. I don't recall it but I'm not surprised. I still do stuff like that now. I'm a restless sort of person, I think. I'll track license plates sometimes even now to see how many states I can get on my way to work.
I almost won $20 from my boss for a shot I tried from behind my desk, with my monitor and a chair sitting outside my door as obstacles, to take the crumbled piece of paper and put it in the trash can about 20 feet away. He breathed a sigh of relief after hitting the trash can instead of making the shot.
I'm glad I haven't forgotten all that.
I'm just a big kid and unashamed.