Shoooot

by Brian Ritchie

June 10, 2026

A leading study found that most males will form friendships around mutual interests. It reported that men will bond over hobbies, things like Civil War reenactments or cataloging worms by personality. Others, more eccentric men, may come together during creative endeavors like Eastern European Catastrophist poetry reading.

Sports are another powerful force. For example, water polo, which, I am told, inspires meaningful friendships between men who are comfortable in water-resistant underwear and shower caps.

While those are great ways for guys to find their pals, I think that the deepest friendships are soldered together at a point of pain.

Which was the case with my high school best friend, John, and me.

In our sophomore year, we joined the soccer team and, I’m just going to say it, we both sucked.

I signed up as a former soccer proficient. However, over the previous summer, I had gone through an unpleasant but common growth spurt. And, it had been a doozy. Almost over night, I was challenged with balancing my head on an oversized golf tee. My knuckles dragged on the ground and were scabby. And my former graceful gate became a process of lifting each leg up swinging it forward and flapping my feet down. It was like I was wearing clown shoes and it diminished some of my better soccer skills, namely running and kicking.

John, on the other hand, wasn’t there because he had a passion for soccer.

Instead, his inspiration came from a deeper place.

His pockets.

Which is to say, his dad paid him $100 to play a sport.

This is conjecture, but I think that he chose soccer because our school didn’t have a water polo team.

Anyway, there we were.

Two strangers on a team, in a sport neither of us could play, and we didn’t really care to.

And, this was the 80s, which was before the invention of the Participation Trophy, which meant that our lack of ability quickly caught the attention of the coaches who cared about things like winning and did not care about things like fairness, or feelings.

As a result, those power-drunk dictators condemned the two of us to the junior varsity roster with a bunch of pre-pubescent freshmen who resented us because we had body hair.

And, from that rich soil of insecurity sprouted a deep and meaningful friendship. One that would carry us through the rest of our formative years.

"Young men don't know this, but older men do: never challenge a male of any species in the presence of a female of the same species."

Jumping ahead a couple of years, those awkward sophomoric boys had blossomed into self-assured, non-soccer-playing seniors.

And the blood coursing through our veins was red hot and tinged with hormones, nicotine, and whatever chemicals and additive are in Dr. Pepper.

We were becoming men.

Adventurous, and viral.

Mostly we were interested in attracting the elusive 80s girls, but it would be a while before we solved that mystery.

On more typical days, the two of us were rangers cruising the streets of our hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia, in John’s yellow Nova, smoking cigarettes, and downing microwave burritos and Big Gulps from 7-Eleven.

We answered to no one, and followed our own code. And that freeform wandering fueled deep teenage discussions filled with angst, bravado and harmless falsehoods. We would delve into the real mysteries of life, things like why “99 Luftballons” was hotter in German.

The cruise control would be set on smooth, and we would drift down the road cranking Footloose and, again, hoping a girl or two would notice us.

We were young bucks and we were looking to test out our coming-of-age forms and frames against an adversary.

John went first.

It happened around dusk.

It was the point in the evening when you had exhausted most of the nothing-to-do activities, and it was time to head to the mall.

Maybe see if there were any new parachute pants at Chess King, and then go burn some quarters at Aladdin’s Castle.

So John pointed the car toward Fashion Square Mall, and when it was approaching, he made a play for the right lane, getting there by flooring it and performing the automotive equivalent of cutting in line just before a red light.

In the moment, I was stoked and gave him a, “Haha, yeah!”

Unfortunately, the man—the real, adult man in the car behind us—felt differently about the maneuver, and the real man honked his real horn.

Which was fair.

But this wasn’t about fair, it was about winning. So, in response, one of us may have used a universally recognized sign language expression, just to let him know we didn’t care for the tone of his horn.

And, with that, we laughed a little and eased back into our seats feeling as though we had won.

It felt good.

That was about to end.

You see, there is a rule in nature, which young men don’t know but older men do: you must never, under any circumstances, challenge a male of any species in the presence of a female of the same species.

As it turned out, John had cut off Bruce Banner.

And Lady Banner was sitting right beside him.

Moments later, the Hulk exited the car filling John’s rear-view mirror with green terror.

“He’s coming,” John said.

Now, by nature, I have always tried to be pragmatic when it comes to life and death situations, it has always been my philosophy that if there is a way to minimize the body count you should choose it. I didn’t know what peril we were about to face, and it didn’t make sense for both of us to perish, so I quickly transformed my demeanor from accomplice to witness.

“Dude, what have you done?” I asked.

I can only describe what happened next as browbeating, and I will not repeat the one-sided rich dialogue that filled the air, as it was inappropriate for any audience.

What I mean is, by that point in my life, I had accumulated a fairly robust dictionary of worldly vernacular and I still managed to pick up several new words and combinations of them.

The haranguing continued for an entire light cycle, and not one person behind us honked or appeared to be anything but supportive of the corrective action.

John had no choice but to take it.

He just locked his hands at ten and two on the wheel and fixed his eyes on the gruesome creature breathing verbal fire down his face.

Hate burns hot and fast and once the man had made the point that we were in the wrong, he settled into a posture of waiting for a response.

And boy, did he get one.

Slowly…

Painfully so…

John’s head cranked from the man all the way over to me, and through a stunned, painted-on smile, he said:

“Shooooot.”

Only he didn’t say shoot.

He said the word for poop.

The big one.

The queen mother of poop words—the S--- word.

I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted to laugh so hard as I did in that moment and I think I peed a little from holding it in.

John continued staring at me while the man gave up on a proper apology and returned to his car, where I’m sure Mrs. Banner sat proudly awaiting the return of her warrior.

“I don’t know what to do,” John said.

“I’d drive,” I replied.

---

Thoughts

Looking back, what got us into trouble wasn’t courage.

It wasn’t even conviction.

And it certainly wasn’t wisdom.

It was pride.

"The truth is, we thought we were bigger than we were. Stronger than we were. Smarter than we were."

The truth is, we thought we were bigger than we were.

Stronger than we were.

Smarter than we were.

And God has a way of allowing things to happen that correct that sort of thinking.

James 4:6 says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

Humility puts others before ourselves.

It recognizes that we aren’t the center of the universe.

And it’s only from that posture that we can truly love the people around us.

Hebrews 12:11 says:

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

And that, my friends, is how we keep it bright and hopeful.

---

Pray

God in Heaven,

May your Spirit teach me humility, for I am not humble by nature.

May I hear others who speak words of correction, and allow their discipline to penetrate my pride.

May I love recklessly.

May I give until I have nothing left?

May I trust that you will show favor when I am humble?

In Jesus' name,

Amen

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Going Deeper

1. Discipline & Growth – Think of a time when you were corrected (by a parent, teacher, coach, or even a stranger). How did it feel in the moment, and what lasting lesson (if any) came from it? How does Hebrews 12:11 shape the way we should view those moments?

2. Pride vs. Humility – Why do you think pride often leads us into conflict with others? In what practical ways can you “put others before yourself” this week to walk in the humility James 4:6 describes?

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