I've known the guy almost 20 years and don't learn until this very day that a very close personal friend, whose name will not be mentioned, is... crap-shy. I was on the phone with him just now, relating yet another amusing anecdote, when he urged me to hurry up: nature was calling.

I reminded him that his phone was cordless, but he still begged off.

"Nah, nah, I can't do that."

I never would've suspected it. With Mastandreas, it's a given. I can't count how many times I've been on the phone with BazzukaJoe while launching.

BazzukaJoe: "Whuddyadoin?"

Me: "Squeezing."

BazzukaJoe: "Aggghhh, you too? I just got off the phone with my cousin Steve and he was doing the same thing."

Me: "What can I say, you have a laxative effect on people."

Even in high school I'd often have phone conversations with Andre while one or the other us was letting loose. I also remember distinctly a phone call in which Andre abruptly blurted out: "Aggghhh, I stepped in shit."

It was an odd thing to exclaim: I pictured him somehow catching a glimpse of the bottom of his shoes.

Me: "What, you stepped in shit on the way home?"

Andre: "No, I stepped in shit just now."

It was his dog Yogi, not yet fully housebroken.

I gotta get Andre onto this blog. He's practically a Mastandrea: our Military Science instructor SGM Benford kept referring to us as brothers.

Andre: "Benford just yelled at me. Told me 'If you don't stop that right now I'm gonna give you ten days jug just like your brother.'"

His brother was not yet enrolled in the school (I was the one who had just been given ten days jug -- can't remember why).