High school story

Once upon a time, back when I was a sophomore at Holy Child, I had to go through a class called Road to Perdition. Some other people call it gym.

When I was a sophomore, phys ed actually sucked a whole lot less than it started out. For one, it was only two days a week. And secondly, we actually did engage in "sports" that were more befitting of an all-girls Catholic high school - WASP pastimes, in otherwords. We were schooled in the proper mechanics of badmitton, fencing, yoga, dance, and archery. To make up for the fact that we weren't exactly burning off the calories in a carrot stick during class, we had to bring in a log each week detailing the cardivascular training we pursued at home on our own time. If you know anything about me, your guess that I forged these little weekly claims is completely iron logic, kemosabe. Every week I turned in a record which stated I had gone on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week. Regardless of the fact that that kind of exercise is complete bullshit to begin with, it was still really, really false. And on top of that I forged my mom's name. Sorry, Ann.

Anyway. My whole scheme kind of came back to bite me in the butt, as the reason we were required to hand these slips in was because the at-home exercise served as training for the two-mile run we were to do from campus into "the village." Holy Child is situated deep in the equestrian utopia of Potomac, Maryland, where the people:horse:McMansion ratio is probably 2:5:1. The hills and trees look like something out of a Keats poem, and let me tell you, when you're an amoebus couch potato of a high schooler, who's idea of a workout is opening a can of Mike's hard lemonade, then running those mammoth hills aint no cakewalk. On the day of the run, as I lagged behind all the other girls, somewhere around Behnke's greenhouse, I decided it would be a better idea to stop and puke on the side of River Road. My gym teacher came up behind me, probably suppressing her vindicated laughter while she asked, "you OK, Bridge?" (due to a stubborn insistence that my name was Bridget - even when she learned it halfway into my time at HC). I blamed my pathetic disability on the fact that all I had for breakfast that morning was orange juice, which we all KNOW you're not supposed to have before a run (sike - it don't matter one bit!). She told me to get in the van, which was following our class in the case of just such a travesty. I sat in that van while it followed my class all the way to the village, where all the HEALTHY girls bought ice cream from Safeway to eat on the ride back.

My punishment was that I then had to WALK SIX miles a few days later with all the girls who had valid excuses (ie asthma, a broken leg, admittedly not filling out their exercise slips for the whole year) not to run.

The lesson learned after all this? Wait till you're at a party, and you're drunk, to vomit in front of your gym teacher.