Butts Up

When I was around 12 years old, I came upon a game being played by a group of boys from the neighborhood. They invited me to play with them, telling me that the game was called butts up. I didn’t know how to play, so they briefly explained the rules. It’s a fairly simple game played with a single ball (like a tennis ball or racketball) thrown against a wall. It didn’t sound too complicated, and I liked games, so I figured I’d give it a try. What they didn’t explain at the time was the penalty for making a mistake three times. Since I was new to the game, I didn’t have any issues with taking some extra risks, so of course I was the next person to make this particular mistake thrice. The penalty as they informed me, was to get down on all fours facing the wall with your butt facing towards the other boys. Then the boys line up perhaps 15-20 feet back, taking turns hurling the ball at your ass as hard as they could, until each boy had a chance to throw. When they first told me this penalty, I thought they must be joking since I’d never encountered a game with a rule like that. But multiple boys assured me that was indeed the rule. I didn’t want to lose face, so I went along with it and decided to just deal with the penalty and get it over with, even though I was definitely scared. The ball they used was hard – harder than a tennis ball – so of course it stung badly each time I was hit. There were about a dozen boys ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Emotions Values Source Type: blogs