The Legend

Babies are born every minute of every day in every country of the world. Most babies grow up to lead normal lives as good people. Sometimes babies grow up to be firemen, other times they grow up to be seamstresses, and occasionally a baby will grow up to do something special like win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But once in every blue moon, a baby is born that grows up to be a legend. A legend is defined by urbandictionary.com as “someone or something whose coolness transcends space and time”. I know a decent amount of cool people who are pretty funny, fairly smart, and moderately hip, but there is only one person I know that can truly be considered a legend. That person goes by the name of Benjamin Sevcik.

Ben is literally a prophet. I’m serious, he should have his own chapter of scriptures in the Old Testament. Ben once explained to me that a person can say whatever they want to someone else even if they know it isn’t true as long as they say “I don’t know” at the end of their statement while trailing off. As the years passed, I came to realize that Ben is right. I could tell someone about my theory on why dog sledding should be one of the big four sports in the U.S. replacing hockey and give all the reasons why dog sledding is a sport that people will love and pay money to go watch and all I have to say is “I don’t know” and trail off at the end of my speech and it totally excuses me from prosecution when they find out that my theory is defunct.

Like all good legends, Ben does what is right, even if it isn’t popular. I once heard a tale about a fantasy football post-season party that Ben crashed with his girlfriend. People who were present say it was like the time when Jesus stormed into church and smashed the Roman’s blackjack tables, condemning them for gambling in God’s house. This fantasy football party was a culmination of 17 weeks of pure dudeness- football, gambling, and trash talking over the internet. There were 15 guys at the party drinking to excess, giving each other wedgies, talking about their plans to get laid someday. When the Legend walked in with his girlfriend, the room became very quiet and still. I am told Ben raised his head and said, “I am here to collect my money.” Ben was the guy who won the fantasy league, and he showed up to the all-guy fantasy football party with his girlfriend to collect his $1,200! Tell me that isn’t the stuff of legend!

Sometimes, Ben is given no choice and has to use force to get his point across. He doesn’t want to do it because he knows his superior strength could literally kill someone, but as a legend, he needs to draw a line in the sand that bad guys know not to cross. One time in the late 1990's, Ben had a party at his parent's house. When a guy named Matt Peters got out of control and broke the family shofar, Ben literally smashed his head into a glass table, lit his head on fire with a burner from the stove, and dragged Matt’s dead corpse through the streets of Naperville. When Ben returned home, party-goers bowed down to him and several girls offered to bathe him and clean his wounds. Ben obliged.

In my opinion, January 28th should not be a national holiday, it should be a world holiday where no human on the planet does any work, everyone just sits at home all day and thinks about how much of a legend Ben is. But until that happens, a blog post on Intheends will have to do. Happy birthday, Sesh. One of these days you gotta tell us your secret to being a legend.