I SHALL TELL YOU A TALE OF PURE FOLLY!
The year us 1999, I am in seventh grade. Like most seventh-graders, I hate everything that I am forced to do but I especially hate Pep Rallies. They are hell for my tiny little social outcast ADHD brain: loud noises, forced enjoyment of an activity, sports, pointless interaction with people I can’t stand, and the potential for relentless bullying afterwards.
So we had a pep rally.
And I, for the first time in my rules-following life, decided to skip.
My class filed into the gym, I ducked into the bathroom, and waited for the sound of the doors closing.
Problem was that I didn’t think I’d get this far and I’ve never been in the habit of delinquency, so I had no idea what to do next. I started wandering the halls just a little bit, testing out the freedom of having broken the rules, going down hallways that weren’t part of my routine…
…when I heard dogs barking.
You see…
…the pep rallies weren’t exactly about basketball. The pep rallies were an excuse to make lots of noise so no one heard the police dogs when they came looking for drugs in people’s lockers.
And I am not where I’m supposed to be. I am where NO ONE is supposed to be. And I panic, because if I show up to the pep rally late they are going to notice.
I did not think this through.
So I start looking for somewhere to be while the police are searching for worse criminals than myself and I see a bunch of students in the cafeteria. One of them is a friend of mine, so I wouldn’t be completely out of place in this location, so I came in and sat down next to her. A roster is being passed around and I sign it so that I can say that I was accounted for during the pep rally in some way.
The teacher who is heading whatever this is stands up in front of this group and says:
“Thank you for coming to the track and field tryouts. You’ve all made it in.”
Uh…
…woops.
I think I’ll just sit through this one meet and then quit. People do it all the time, I don’t think anyone would notice.
Except that this is a small town and everyone knows everyone- so the teacher/coach helpfully informed my father that I’d joined the track team voluntarily and in no way was it a mistake of any kind.
My whole family is sports nuts. My dad was in charge of the sports page at the news paper, my mom will talk excitedly about college football, and my brother has excelled in every sport he’s ever been in.
I’m a textbook case of Not That. Art student, lead violist, and the most exercise I get is dodging projectile rocks on my way home from school.
But my dad is SO proud of me when he hears about it. Lee is doing a Sport? A Sport that’s physical? A Sport with a team? A SPORT!
Like… he bought me new shoes and stuff to clean the shoes with and all kinds of first aid stuff for my muscle pains and oh my god for the first time in his life I was in a SPORT!
(Just to emphasize- he has always been PROUD of me. He thought I was a genius because I showed him how to make chocolate dipped strawberries at home without a fondue pot like… he’s pretty sure I’m going to save the world somehow. But this was the first time that I had ever shown even the smallest bit of interest in doing a Sport, which is HIS special interest and now we can BOND!)
So I try.
You know… I hate running.
I actually have a condition caused by a childhood illness that impacts cartilage development as well as asthma from a bronchial infection when I was in 5th grade.
But my dad came to all of the track meets that he could and I was so deep into the lie that quitting now would break him.
So I try my hand at non-running events: shot put and discus. I’d still have to run during practice, but I was allowed to go off and do Not Running for a little bit.
I can’t remember the actual numbers or anything, but I remember that when I first did shot put with proper form, the coach kind of turned her head sideways and said ‘damn.’
So turned out that being at the roly-poly stage of my larval development meant that I was still learning how my personal body chemistry affects the build of muscle. The answer is 'very quickly.’
It starts getting hard to find shirts that will fit my biceps and now I’m in trouble for wearing non-standard issue tank tops to school from practicing shot and discus.
If this were a movie, it would mean that suddenly being a jock meant that I had been accepted by my peers and something something Mean Girls something something. But no, because having incredible muscle as a thirteen year old did not do anything to disspell the rumors that I was a lesbian and unfortunately I was still bullied relentlessly. Nor did I ever throw a punch because I don’t like hurting people and no one ever taught me how to fight. But it did mean that I had a handful of girls ready to use teeth and nails to defend the shot put champion.
Which is important because I was the ONLY shot put and discus thrower in the school.
And as I found out- the district.
I went almost an entire season without competing against a single person, winning the event by default.
Until the semi-finals.
And I did have to compete against an assortment of other thirteen year olds that were just now learning that they had upper body strength. But because they ALSO were the only ones competing in those events they had never competed against another person either.
So we all sucked.
I got gold in shot put. Bronze in discus. But to their credit there were only three competitors.
Huge fucking deal for my dad.
Not a huge deal for the rest of the track team, who all did really poorly in most events BUT throwing events, which meant that this was our last game of the season.
And so ended my short, accidental career as the middle school shot put champion.
“Did you try out again in 8th grade?”
Fuck no. I hate running.
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