I hated gym class in High School. I was a dancer and ballet was the only form of athleticism I could stand. I hated running because I got cramps and felt like I was going to puke after two minutes. I did not enjoy playing sports; I have never been able to keep up with all the rules and I am entirely uncompetitive when it comes to sports, which doesn't go over well with nearly everyone else in the world, apparently. Also, I have a rather justified minor phobia of flying balls (incidentally, the Wal-Mart vision center changed their policy of unlimited free repairs on glasses due to my unique basketball-to-face magnetism during Middle School lunch hours). I've gotten better about that little phobia, but I still flinch when I unexpectedly see a ball flying through the air, to the amusement of some.
There are four days during that wretched one credit class that I remember vividly - two with horror, one with amusement, and one with victory. Let's start with the funny one.
Triangles
Let me start by saying that I have my blonde moments. I cannot and will not deny that. Overall, I'm a smart cookie, but sometimes I just say or do something incredibly idiotic. Surely it happens to everybody, right? This incident occurred during the dreaded five-minute run. We had to run laps around the gym and I hated it. So did my friend, Teresa. Since Mr. Wilkinson spent most of his time looking at mysterious papers on his clipboard (surely he wasn't staring at the attendance list the whole time?), Teresa and I developed a system. It was called the only-run-when-he's-looking system. And that's what we did. We power-walked, walked, or simply strolled until his head twitched ever-so-slightly upward and we'd hoof it. He never called us out on it, so I guess we got away with it. One day, during a spontaneous jog under Mr. Wilkinson's scrutiny I found myself mesmerized by Teresa's legs. Not in a lesbian sort of way. I was mesmerized by the triangle of space that would appear between her legs and the floor. One step, triangle; brief line while the legs are side by side; another step, another triangle. I think I had an out-of-body experience or something because for some reason my leg shot out of its own accord to try to poke through the middle of one of the triangles. While walking, this undoubtedly would have made her stumble and glare at me. Running, however, meant instant pile-up. My leg got squished between hers and we fell in a tangled heap on the ground. "What the heck'd you do that for?" she demanded. I burst out laughing hysterically, muttering about "Triangles!" and we both ignored Mr. Wilkinson's glare and admonishment, "Girls!" I'm still not sure why I did that.
Drill Sergeant
Mr. Wilkinson had an unfortunate accident during that particular semester - he fell off the rafters of his barn and broke his ribs. Ouch. Though it was bad news tennis-shoes for him, it was fortuitous for Teresa, myself, and a few other wimps. We had an awesome substitute who filled in for the rest of the semester (more on that under the victorious memory). Alas, even substitutes need substitutes sometimes. Mr. Awesome Sub (Whose Name I Can't Remember) was unable to come to class one day so we had another sub. When I first walked in for attendance I thought, "Uh-oh." I have an inner military radar. I can sense when someone's been in the military with uncanny accuracy (only been surprised once that I can recall). He was an older guy but he was standing erect, chest thrust out, chin down, jaw clenched. Craaap! He took attendance wicked fast, barking out our last names and checking them off on his clipboard. He told us he was a retired Army Drill Sergeant. Most of me thought I was going to die right then but a tiny part of me that is almost unfailingly optimistic thought I should give Mr. Drill Sergeant Sir a chance. He might not be as terrifying as he seemed. Most of me was a fourteen-year-old girl, though, so most of me was terrified. He barked at us to form two lines - every other person step forward four steps. Everyone else, two. Thus began fast-paced calisthenics that I certainly couldn't keep up with but I tried, darn-tootin', since he intimidated the heck out of me. Then came The Run. You already know how much I hated that run. I hated it even more that day. He asked (barked) for a volunteer so the most enthusiastic jackass of the class raised his hand and started running in stupid circles around the stupid gym. We all had to run single file behind him. Of course, Enthusiastic Jackass decided he needed to show off to Mr. Drill Sergeant Sir and ran as fast as he could, which was faster than I had any inclination to run. Between the running and the calisthenics, I was starting to fade and for the first (and possibly only) time in my life I thanked God for my recent diagnosis of asthma. Mr. Drill Sergeant Sir was still doing a bang up job of barking and intimidating, but I only let intimidation get to me for so long and for so far. There comes a point when I say, "Screw it, he's a human, too." So I played up my wheezing a bit and staggered pitifully over to him, "I- wheeze - can't- gasp - DO THIS anymore! wheeze wheeze I need- pant - my inhaler!" He was nice enough to let me get it and spend the rest of class sitting on the stairs, watching everyone else die a little. That class is why I laughed my butt off when the Marines tried to recruit me my senior year. HA!
Brain Slosh
I was in the locker room. It was the end of class and I had just changed back into my school clothes and reapplied deodorant. I bent over to gather up my shoes and other belongings scattered on the floor. The lockers were typical gym lockers - rows of stacked vanguard steel, painted red for our school colors. I was talking about something inconsequential with one of my friends when she gasped and said, "Wa-" CLANG. "-tch out!" My teeth smashed together painfully when my rise was suddenly aborted. Then the real pain set in. Sharp and dull at the same time on the back part of the top of my head. I groaned and slid down to the floor, leaning against someone's locker. Wincing, I glanced up to see the sharp corner of an opened locker door jutting out directly over me. I briefly entertained the thought of sticking out the rest of the school day. Then I stood up. Somehow or another (probably with the help of my friend) I made it to the office and called my mom to come pick me up. By the time she got to me, my noggin was aching. Oddly, it hurt pretty badly somewhere behind my forehead, though it was the back of my head that I conked. Mom thought that was a little too odd for comfort so she took me to the walk-clinic. After a painful prodding examination ("Does this hurt?" What the heck wouldn't after that?) the doc said, "You may have had a mild concussion and the reason your forehead hurts is because you had a brain slosh." My immediate thought was of the doctor's nefarious diagnosis to Joe in Joe vs. the Volcano (great movie, if you haven't seen it). The doctor in the movie said Joe had "a brain cloud." So I had a brain slosh. I stared at the doctor a moment and asked, "What's a brain slosh?" He explained that the brain is not unmovable in the cranium. When I whacked the living daylights out of the back of my head, the force made my brain slosh forward and whack against the front of my skull. So not only was I feeling head pain in the back, but I was feeling brain pain in the front. I guess I bruised my frontal lobe or something. Brain slosh. Weird. And yet another reason to hate gym class.
Victory
One of the many reasons I hated gym class was because I seemed to have the majority of the football and wrestling teams in my class. I was not entranced by bulging muscles and simmering testosterone. Mostly I was annoyed with senseless over-competitiveness. I mean, really, who cares about a game score when it's for a stupid gym class? Apparently a lot of equally annoyed guys who were a lot bigger than me. One day Mr. Awesome Sub announced we would be playing hockey. Teresa and I groaned and prepared for our every-game any-sport strategy - stay off to the side and scatter when the competitive people started coming our way. With a bunch of teenage guys getting into the game, it became increasingly dangerous to be anywhere in the vicinity. I finally had enough and wound cautiously through the throng of violent man-boys with sticks in their hands. Mr. Awesome Sub was standing calmly in the middle of chaos. "Please," I implored, "let me and some others go upstairs and do something else - anything else!"
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm afraid I'm going to get hit in the face!" And then, with perfect, impeccable timing, one of the pubescent beasts swung his hockey stick back viciously and it stopped an inch from my nose. So intent on the game, he was none the wiser, but Mr. Awesome Sub's eyes widened and he said, "I see what you mean! Okay, here's the key to the storage room. I don't care what you do, as long as you're exercising."
Triumphantly, I held the key aloft for my fellow wimps to see and noodled my way through and around the ridiculously vicious hockey game to the storage closet. We armed ourselves with jump ropes and frisbees then skedaddled upstairs to the gym's balcony. There were wrestling mats on the floor, so some people tumbled while the rest of us played frisbee or jump rope. More than once a frisbee would sail over our heads and down into the middle of the hockey game, annoying the guys. I didn't care. They scared the crap out of me while I was down there, so they could deal with a frisbee winging them occasionally. I'd just smile sweetly and ask them to toss it back up to us.
That day was the magical turning point of my gym class career. Henceforth, every day I would line up for attendance, do calisthenics (at my own danged pace, thank you), jog slower than a grandma, then approach Mr. Awesome Sub for the key to the storage room and spend the rest of class up in the balcony doing whatever the heck I wanted. More than once Teresa and I would sneak down the second set of stairs leading out into the hallway and visit our band director, whose office was nearby. The band director always looked amused when we'd wander in, sweaty, with jump ropes dangling from our fists but she never told on us, God bless her.