I don’t want to brag, but I can totally slam-dunk. Like, I don’t need a running start, just give me the ball, get me right under the net, and it’s just, “Boom-shaka-laka!” just like from that old NBA Jam game, only in real life, and that’s really my voice, I just shouted it out, right as I was dunking. And I don’t care if this is just a friendly scrimmage, what, I don’t tell you to not shoot threes. And so what, if you don’t want to keep losing to me in HORSE, maybe you should learn how to dunk. Dunk. H. Dunk. O. I’m sorry, but I’m not even sorry, I’m just being polite, because there are plenty of short guys in the NBA that can dunk, so work on it, ride the exercise bike, I’ve heard that helps increase the vertical leap.

And I’m not trying to rub it in or anything, but did I tell you that I just got a huge bonus at work? And that was on top of that raise that I was telling you about last week. Like, I expected the raise to come in, that was a guarantee. And yeah, I guess I did expect the bonus too, but I didn’t want to brag, I’m trying to stay humble, to not let all of this money get to my head. Because it was a lot of money. Even if I were pretending to be humble, I wouldn’t really have to, the humbling was automatic, I was humbled by the size of that check, I was just like, “Woooow,” and my boss just stuck out his hand, “You earned it! Keep up the good work!”

Because dude, I am just killing it this year. Did I tell you about my trainer? Did I tell you about the feature they ran about me in Transactions magazine? Do read Transactions? Yeah, but did I tell you they’re planning on doing a follow-up? They’ve got me tagged as one of the top transactioners of 2013, and they set me up with this camera guy, it was like a whole photo shoot.

Yeah, you saw those guys on the sidelines, right? Could you tell they were there for me? It was like, there was this whole interview part of the article, we got past all of the transactioning questions, they were like, “So, what do you do in your free time? Any special talents?” and I was like, I started it out just like I was talking to you earlier, I said, “I don’t want to brag but … actually, don’t say that in the article, or put it in, but don’t make it sound too calculated. But I can totally slam-dunk.”

Basketball. That’s what I should have said. So yeah, that’s why I told them to come to our pick-up game. Was it too obvious that they were there for me? Was I hamming it up a little too much? I guess I didn’t have to dunk that often. The HORSE was totally unnecessary. I should have just come clean with you guys from the beginning, but I told the crew beforehand to take a bunch of photos of everyone else too.

So that’s why I was acting just as confused as you guys, like, “Why are these professional photographers here?” Which, man, since you’re telling me everyone basically knew it had to have been something to do with me, now I just feel a little disingenuous. And do you think those weird mock-confusion faces showed up on camera? Maybe I should call them back for next week. We could play twenty-one, so that way I could still dunk without it being as cheap as just owning you guys in HORSE.

Although, I’m still not really sorry about the HORSE. What about the trick bounce shot that Jeffries landed? That had to have been practiced, like you could tell he was one of those kids that spent way too much time perfecting that one random shot in the backyard. Whatever, if he spent even half that effort on the bike, it wouldn’t have been such a blowout. Did I already say that? The part about the vertical leap?

I really hate to brag, I’m just so excited, I’ve got so much going on in my life. So just let me brag a little. My fucking money, my spread, I wish I had a basketball in my hands right now. And then next time something happens for you, seriously, I’ll be the first guy you call, I give you my permission, brag away, let me in on just how good it’s going for you, like even though I’ll nod along, “Great! I’m so happy for you!” you won’t think I’m really grasping just how well things are, like you can’t stress enough, seriously, things are going so wildly well, and you don’t know how to adequately communicate what a success you’ve become, because I won’t even be on your level, our very definitions of success will be so totally far apart that, from my perspective, your success won’t even look any different from anybody else’s regular failure. I mean my success. Just, let me brag just a little. But seriously, call me when you hear about that job, or when those test results come in, I’m sure everything’s going to be great, but just let me have this moment, just, today about me, cool?