Jillian: You already heard this story. Don't bother to read on.
Everyone Else Who Writes In This Blog: Being my athletically challenged friends (sorry, guys, but it's true...remember softball?), I figured that you all could appreciate this story just as much as I did.

* * *

I was forced to be an athlete today. I had to play with my freshmen at the university's ropes course. Prior to playing on the ropes, however, I had to play other little athletic games with them. One of these games included a race in which I was on a team with a few of the freshmen. This race required us to sprint across an open field while carrying one of our teammates. I, along with Brock - one of the four guys in a class of 25 - was responsible for carrying the tiniest little freshman girl across this field. Brock is much more of an athlete than me. He can run faster. His legs are longer. So, as we ran while carrying this girl, he got ahead of me. I tried (and failed) to catch up to him. I lost my footing, dropping the freshman girl (who kicked me in the back on the way down). I got a grass stain on both of my knees. I landed on my shoulder, which - twelve hours later - is finally starting to hurt. The freshman scraped the shit out of her arm because the grass is no longer grass; it's really hard and prickly and she fell about three feet at a fairly rapid rate of speed. Yeah. I injured one of my freshmen today. Somehow, I don't think that's part of my job description.

So. There was a bathroom break between this race and playing on the ropes and, for once in my life, I didn't have to pee. During the break I announced to my Jew that I was not an athlete, and that I do not do athletic things...like running while carrying a freshman or climbing ropes. This led in to a discussion of my being forced to climb that horrible blue rubber pole in elementary school. I hated that. I can still remember how it made the gym smell all synthetic. I can remember standing in line for the pole, nervous as hell and dreading the moment that it was my turn to climb, watching Jordan Hanneman scale the thing faster than a goddamn monkey. I simply couldn't do it. I couldn't even stay on the pole. I always slid off. We were supposed to race against the person climbing the other pole...but I couldn't even go up an inch. I couldn't hold on.

My Jew apparently had this problem as well. Her experience was a bit more extreme than mine, though. When she was unable to climb the pole her gym teacher forced her to stay after school every day until she was able to make it to the top. Eventually, she did it. On her last day of servitude to the gym teacher, my Jew climbed all the way to the top, climbed back down, pushed the gym teacher, and kicked sand into her eyes. (This was in California; they had outdoor gym class.) She was promptly suspended.

My Jew is my new athletically retarded hero. I wish I could go back to elementary school and kick sand in Mrs. Brock's eyes. She was never mean to me but I still hated her for making me climb that fucking pole, serve that fucking volleyball, run laps around that fucking gym, scoot around on that fucking scooter board, play that fucking Around the World game...

Yes. Siggie is a little bitter.