<\/p>\n
For Samuel Del Fiacco<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I met your father our freshman year of college,<\/p>\n when the whole English department<\/p>\n gathered for general remarks<\/p>\n to kick off the fall semester. I took the open seat<\/p>\n next to him, and after some small talk<\/p>\n cut right to the chase, asking<\/p>\n if he ever played basketball,<\/p>\n my surest litmus test for friendship<\/p>\n at the time. He said that he did,<\/p>\n and I resolved, then, that he would be<\/p>\n my first college friend. Not long after, we made plans<\/p>\n to play at the campus rec center,<\/p>\n and when we did, I had the distinct privilege to witness<\/p>\n what can only be described as an absolute shitshow, your father<\/p>\n about as out of place on the freethrow line<\/p>\n as a jacked-up horse in a jewelry shop.<\/p>\n Confused by his unfamiliarity with the game<\/p>\n and basic lack of athleticism\u2014so evident<\/p>\n in his movements on the court, in his<\/p>\n handling of the ball\u2014I wondered aloud<\/p>\n why he told me he played. He explained<\/p>\n Well<\/em>, he doesn\u2019t play<\/em>, but technically he has played<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the years since, he has demonstrated<\/p>\n a distressingly profound clumsiness<\/p>\n countless times\u2014breaking more glasses<\/p>\n than I now own, shattering light fixtures at restaurants<\/p>\n when lifting his arms in greeting, and even<\/p>\n spilling all the breast milk on the night<\/p>\n they brought you home, reducing your mother<\/p>\n to tears. Even tonight, at your first-ever Christmas party<\/p>\n with the whole gang, he brought his elbow down<\/p>\n on the back of my chair, yelled out in pain, and dropped some dice<\/p>\n on the hardwood floor, which carried them away<\/p>\n as he toppled a pile of cards with his bear-like hand, a hand<\/p>\n transformed, somehow, when later<\/p>\n it cupped your head on the living room rug<\/p>\n and he showed me, with patience, how to change you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Evan Vandermeer For Samuel Del Fiacco I met your father our freshman year of college, when the whole English department gathered for general remarks to kick off the fall semester. I took the open seat next to him, and after some small talk cut right to the chase, asking if he ever played basketball, my surest litmus test for friendship at the time. He said that he did, and I resolved, then, that he would be my first college friend. Not long after, we made plans to play at the campus rec center, and when we did, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-76","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions\/77"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}