"And so eventually it wound up all of the people playing croquet had no idea what the rules were!"
Both men bursted out laughing.
"You should have seen them, going every which way—not a clue!"
"A wonderful story, thank you for that," the larger man said, still chuckling.
"Yeah," the smaller man said, looking around at the other people at the party.  "So what about basketball?"
"What about basketball?" the larger man replied, frowning.
"I asked you first," the smaller man said, a wide grin across his face.
The larger man snapped into action, shoving the smaller man against the wall, looking around to make sure no one was looking.
"YOU LISTEN TO ME," he said intensely, his face very close to the smaller man, "I will not have this witless small talk be a part of my life, you hear me?"
"Uh . . ." the smaller man said, his eyes wide and glancing around.
"I said you hear me??"
"I'm sorry?"
"YOU'D BETTER BE!" the larger man snarled, spit flying out of his mouth, "I have plans, you know!  Plans to live an amazing life, one filled with incredible people, people who seem too incredible to even exist.  My life is going to be one of the most thrilling lives ever, one filled with stories other people could only dream of happening!  You got that??"
The larger man's eyes glowed with a rageful intensity. 
"I SAID YOU GOT THAT??"
"Ye-ye, uh, yeah . . . w-why exactly?"
"Because, you fool," the larger man began slowly, "how ELSE will I make it into history?!? How ESLE will people remember me?!"
"Umm . . . there is no other way?" the smaller man guessed.
"Assassinate someone, that's how," the larger man responded condescendingly, "But guess what?  I don't have the have the hand-eye coordination for that!"
"Oh," the smaller man said stupidly.
"Yeah, Oh!" mocked the larger man, "So now we're going to return to our conversation, and you had better have something more intelligent and memorable to say than some vague, open-ended comment about basketball . . . okay?"
"Ye-yeah," the smaller man stuttered, sliding down back onto the floor.   
"So then," the larger man began, brushing himself off, "where were we?"
The smaller man then gulped noticeably, hoping his brain would take this as a signal to think of something good.