Yo, do you want to hear the craziest shit?

The other day I'm sitting out on the quad with a couple of my bros, okay? Like, let's set the scene here a little bit: blue skies, all my beautiful dudes all snuggled up in their little coats (but not in a gay way and if you insinuate that my dad will totally sue you), Moose screaming uncontrollably and pounding a 30-rack of Keystone Light all by himself at 1 p.m. (so righteous), me scoping some freshman biddies on Tinder (most girls don't find out about my aggressive lactation problem until junior year, so keep that on the low-low) — basically all the makings of the chillest Ta'anith Esther ever. Then, Moose turns to me with a mouthful of brewski and completely harshes my mellow with this truth-grenade: "PBFFFFBFFFFGRAGHLGRAGHLWWWWW," which roughly translates to "TJ, my dude and sickest wakeboarder I know on a personal level, do you want to watch those chicks in the women's hockey team practice later?"

First things first: don't get me wrong, nothing gets me harder than vaguely female-looking figures covered head to toe in 15 pounds of figure-obscuring hockey gear. All my dudes know that's, like, my number one sexual fantasy outside of being spit-roasted by 1984 Molly Ringwald and the Hamburger Helper glove. Until a few days ago, however, that's all that was — a fantasy. I had no idea women (sorry, I meant "chicks," I'm not gay) actually had their own hockey program. Needless to say, this newly-acquired knowledge really shocked my system, and after processing what I had just heard by blasting the fuck out of my triceps at the Iron Paradise, I decided to see what was really going on.

I triple parked my H2 outside the athletics center and marched inside to demand some answers. My relationship with Coach Hughes has been pretty strained after I tried to sell some Xannies to his four-year-old daughter, but ol' TJ is a master of persuasion. After clinging to his car's undercarriage all the way to his house, brandishing a gun in his face and threatening to travel across the country murdering everyone he's ever loved in increasingly horrific ways, he was more than happy to answer my questions (and he totally pissed his pants! Party foul!). Nothing in the world could have possibly prepared me for what came out of his mouth.

"Wait, seriously? What are you talking about? Of course there's a women's hockey team... we've had one for over 40 years. In fact, most colleges have athletic programs for wom-"

I didn't catch the rest of what he said because I had to make it back to my Hummer before sundown, but I'm sure it was equally crazy. While my paralyzing fear of natural darkness inhibits me from living a comfortable life, nothing scares me more than women doing men's work. Sure, a women's hockey program may seem like nothing, but what comes next once we let this behavior start to slip through the cracks? Female doctors? Female lawyers? Female diagnostic medical sonographers? What a cruel twist of fate that would surely be.

After the internet informed me that women are capable of holding all of these positions, and currently do, I fell into what my lady doctor described as "hypovolemic shock," which must have happened when I ran headfirst into my bedroom wall while screaming something about "Obama's America," according to Moose. We got to talking as I recovered and she let me know all about her daughter's basketball team and the fundraising they were doing for a local children's hospital. We watched some videos of some of her more recent games and it was like watching any men's basketball game but without all the obscene posturing, hysteric theatrics and embarrassing excuses for "injuries." I saw one girl collide with another girl in mid-air and fall flat on her face, only to get up seconds later and push through the rest of the game with a gnarly black eye. It was almost as if chicks have so much to deal with in their day-to-day existence — the constant oppression of an aggressively active patriarchy, persistent fear of harassment and assault, the societally-instilled fear of not being respected as much as their male counterparts based entirely on the abstract concept of gender — that lady athletes have no choice but to play harder, bolder and stronger than men do. In a way, it makes the mere notion of women's sports endlessly commendable in and of itself. It makes all female athletes heroes. 

Moose picked me up from the hospital the next day and we drove to 7-11 to kill some Slurpees and dehydrated beef tubes. Back in the car, I told my sweet dude about everything I had learned about women's sports with the conviction of a hardbody blunt-master born again, enlightened and filled with a renewed vigor (and about 10 pounds of congealed Whey protein sitting in my kidneys, which various doctors have said will inevitably kill me). Moose said some bullshit about how I'm probably the only person currently living who didn't know that women were also capable of playing competitive sports. The old, hyper-masculine me would have taken this as an opportunity to insult his horrific child's penis but your boy TJ is living life with open eyes and an open heart. We worked out our aggression by cranking some fuckin' Chili Peppers ("Scar Tissue," duh) and crushing a quick lats set in the parking lot. 

So maybe I am the last guy on Earth to find out that women can play sports too. I am an overcompensating white male, however, and explaining shit I just found out about to people who have known about it forever is kind of my favorite thing to do. Women are really fucking good at sports. They're strong as shit, too. Not just spiritually, emotionally and psychologically, but physically as well. This chick (sorry, I mean "woman") Julia Ladewski is this insanely tough powerlifter who has a nearly 500-pound squat record. I go to women's sports games all the time now and not just because I dropped out of all my classes so I'd have more money for vape juice. I love watching them play because they do it with an intensity that isn't cushioned by centuries of male privilege. Women possess a certain vitality, a spirit that is constantly striving toward a greater being that men can just never achieve.

Or whatever, I don't know. Life is trippy. I'm totally owning this copy of "The Second Sex" right now so I'm gonna have to catch you later, aight? See you at the mixer, hombre!