Hi, my name is Tom and I’m an asshole.

Okay that’s not entirely true. I can occasionally be an asshole. But only when provoked. And by asshole, I mean I can be overly complimentary.

Confused? Consider this story.

Several years ago, three buddies and I attended a college basketball tournament. This tournament was being held in Trenton, NJ, so already you should know something was going to go horribly wrong. On the day in question, we stroll into the arena for a long day of basketball games. We settle into our seats and immediately do “our thing.”

Our thing, of course, means I do my thing and my buddies roll their eyes but don’t say anything out of blind loyalty to me. We yell at the refs, we make fun of the really fat people who fetch three boxes of popcorn – before dinner time, and we make any observation that will make each other, or the people around us, laugh.

At one point we notice the quiet, meek older gentleman who had been sitting in front of us speaking with one of the ushers on his way out. They speak for about five minutes and he’s pointing down at us.

“Fellas,” I said. “I think we have a situation.”

We come to find out that the gentleman had asked that our seats be moved because we were disturbing him. Were we being too loud? Nope. Using offensive language? Negative. Were we spilling beer? Of course not – bite your tongue.

Turns out we were being too negative. (“He said you guys were complaining about everything from potatoes to Princeton” the usher told us when we approached him.) This criticism stunned us. We’ve been accused of many things. Being too negative, a drag on others, was not in our arsenal.

While Old Man Negativity slept, I plotted. Too negative, I thought, how is that possible? Okay maybe cut down on the fat jokes (but come on, THREE popcorns? Maybe he should wait until he can actually see his feet to get another one?). Maybe his hearing was bad. He was old after all. Maybe he was a parent of a ref. Not possible – referees are devoid of any soul and have no families.

So, I decided to be an asshole.

The next day arrives and I’m feeling good. We enter the arena, and Old Man Cranky is in his seat and it is on. We sit down and I say, a little louder than I normally would, “Hey guys, I’m really impressed with Trenton. I think it’s a real up and coming city. It has a nice charm.”

I draw the first strange looks from my buddies.

A fat guy goes to fetch another hot dog. Me: “The cardio work will serve him well; it always makes me feel great to get the blood pumping.”

A player turns the ball over. “Great try. Hey guys, did you see his hustle just to get to that ball? He only took his eyes off of it to see which teammate to pass it to. Great effort number 23!”

My buddies? Rolling in their seats. One of them, in the middle of a crying laugh, struggles to say this: “Tom, you really are an asshole. But you’re a funny fucking asshole.” Which, by the way, might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

By the end of the day, of course, I’m annoying them. This had to be the day where they had both a Special Olympics AND a mascot game at halftime, forcing me to be at my very tongue-bitingly best. (No, the Special Olympians and mascots did play not at the same time, but believe me, I’ve thought about mixing the groups together – I think it could be competitive AND entertaining!)

I spent the entire day (six basketball games we sat through) saying only positive things. This, by the way, is much harder than you’d think. Even Richard Simmons would be like “Yo, Sasquatch, ease up on the popcorn – it’ll be here tomorrow too!”

I don’t even know if the old man caught onto my sarcastic sentiments. (I mean, please: the words Trenton and charm have NEVER been spoken in the same sentence.) At the end of the day,though, I didn’t care how he felt. He could have switched his seat. And I was making my buddies laugh.

So I won’t apologize for being an asshole. And you can forget any 12-step program. Though I do admit, 12 steps might get my blood pumping and we all know how great that feels!

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