This won't bring a Chuckle to your face ...

Rounding third and heading home to prepare for a two-day, two-pronged weekend mission:

n To find a store -- any store -- within driving distance that sells Chuckles candy bars.

n To determine if there's any purpose at all for either the black- or orange-colored Chuckles to exist.

While one of us is working on that, here's some stuff for you to mull over:

n Someone who knows the sport of prep basketball thinks we shouldn't be making space in the Waukegan High trophy case for the 2009-2010 state-championship trophy just yet.

It's the same hoops guru who, exactly one year ago, said we shouldn't be making space in the Zion-Benton High trophy case for the 2008-2009 state-championship trophy.

He made the statement about Z-B, even though the team only was losing one key player from the team that finished second in state the previous March.

That one loss however -- Rodney Clinkscales -- wound up leaving a hole in the Zee-Bees' player rotation that the team never was able to fill the following winter.

Now, the hoops guru is making that same statement about Waukegan, which finished second in state last March and graduated just one of its top six players.

Don't be surprised, the guru cautions, if Waukegan finds it every bit as hard to replace Colin Nickerson (now at NCAA Division I Fairfield University in Connecticut) as Zion-Benton did to replace Clinkscales.

You can have a quality player in that spot on the floor, but replacing the intantigbles that Rodney and Colin brought to the table are almost impossible.

Zion never solved the problem, and it's possible that Waukegan won't either.

That was one hoops fan's view.

What do you think?

n For a while there, one of the news-type pages in your daily, local newspaper would, on occasion, feature a piece called "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."

It involved a writer from this paper sharing a meal at someone's home and then writing about what was discussed during chow-time.

The writers had to be invited to someone's house for a meal, which explains why the person writing the words you're reading right now never actually did one of those "Guess Who's" pieces.

He never gets invited to go anywhere but to the Land of Fire & Pitchforks,

But that said, if there is a place where lively dinner conversation most certainly must occur, it has to be at the home of Mundelein High boys basketball coach Richard Knar.

Consider that Knar's basketball coaching philosophy features the Fun & Gun offense, where points come in bunches and there's no such thing as a bad shot.

Now, add to the equation the fact that Knar has two sons at Mundelein High -- Richard, a junior; and Robert, a freshman with soon-to-be-ready-for-prime-time skills -- who've grown up playing the "Fun & Gun" style, and you can imagine the mouthfuls of hoops talk between mouthfuls of food.

To this one-family juggernaut, we add Toni Knar -- Coach Knar's daughter and a senior at Mundelein High.'

She's also probably the school's best girls basketball player and recently made a verbal commitment to play next year at Missouri S&T (Science & Technology) University -- an NCAA Division II program where really smart kids can play quality-level hoops.

The irony here, is this: Toni has carved out her hoops niche playing a style of basketball that is exactly the opposite of what her dad and brothers play. (Last year, she led the Mustangs in scoring, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage, rebounding and, of course, in 3-point baskets.)

Mundelein High's girls basketball program has found regular 20- to 25-win success with a steady-as-it-goes approach to offense in which a 43-34 victory is considered a crown jewel.

For Mundelein's boys, a 43-point quarter MIGHT make the rest of the Knars happy.

Imagine the dinner-table chatter when the boys are talking about launching 3-pointers and pressing and firing up shots every seven seconds, and Toni has to talk about patience and working for a good shot -- a style that produces lots of victories but probably makes her brothers cringe.

Now, THAT would make for interesting table chatter ... and facial expressions.

In any case, both Mundelein High squads will be strong this year. The pick here is that both teams will win regional titles and one will reach the sectional final.

And that, my good friends, is some food for thought.

n The votes are in and the winners are ... prep football fans who know nothing about the sport.

A poll on a prep-sports Web site offered up the following question:

It's fourth-and-one: Who do you want carrying the ball in order to make the first down?

There were a dozen choices, and one of them was the Chicago area's best power back -- Stevenson High senior and Air Force-bound fullback Mark Weisman.

The all-stater and unstoppable force finished ... drum-roll please:

Last.

L-A-S-T.

The best power back we've had around here in years ... maybe in decades ... and he finished LAST.

What can you say, other than this:

W-R-O-N-G answer people.