Ira Glass

I almost broke your leg.

Basically, what happened was I was standing off to the sidelines.

I wasn't often picked to play.

This was like a co-ed game and seemed like very fun.

And Keith said, I'm going to throw Karen the ball.

And he goes, you tackle her, Howard.

Tackle her.

Tackle her hard and you'll be popular and then everyone will like you.

I'm like, okay, I'm going to do it.

And I remember you were kind of running and the sun is shining off and your hair is bouncing and you caught the ball.

And I remember, I just, I don't know what came over me.

I just remember thinking that's what I had to do was I had to tackle you.

And I tackled you really hard.

You're on the ground, you're holding your leg.

Now, any kind of logic would have dictated that's not the way to get the girl you like, right?

This is not how she felt about it at the time.

Because I felt the harder I tackled her, the more popular I'd be.

I took it down like it was prison football.

The game came to an immediate end, everyone circling Karen's writhing body, the football near her lay totally still.

She was holding her leg, looking up at me, saying, You tabalard!