Physical Education

Yesterday I was sitting at A's swim lessons minding my own business (ok totally eavesdropping on the two guys sitting near me with their kids) when a littler kid started flirting with me. You know, little kid flirts that are all about getting the attention of an adult, but they are a little shy about strangers, so they wave and then hide. So I started to sort of talk to the guys about their kids. (One of them has a kid in A's swim lesson.) And then one of them said something that made me lose my mind and say things that are probably socially inappropriate, he told me he was a middle school P.E. Teacher.

Now maybe some of you liked P.E. in middle school, to you I say, move along nothing to see here. But I know that there must be others out there who believe that P.E. classes in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades are definitely deserving of their own circle in Hell. I HATED P.E. classes with a burning passion at that age. And I ESPECIALLY hated, despised, and dreaded seeing my P.E. Teachers. There was nothing good in P.E.

On clear days, you could be expected to run. OH, how I wish I had to ability to go back and tell the 12-14 year old me that it would be fine if I got my mom to buy me a decent sports bra. But then, I was really embarrassed to talk to my mom about stuff like that (for no reason other than age as far as I can discern) so I probably wouldn't take my own advice. Let me tell you, running when you are a C-D cup in 7th grade and wearing a woefully inadequate bra is A) painful, B) practically begging to be stared at and made uncomfortable by boys, and C) practically begging girls to go out of their way to humiliate and ridicule you (probably out of their own self-conciousness, not that it would help a 12 year old to know that or they would believe it.) These are not a recipe for teaching a kid to like to run. My PE teachers used to follow me trying to urge me into running by asking if I wanted to be a lard butt while I walked swiftly instead. So basically every run was 15 minutes of being hounded by adults about why I wasn't running and allowing my self esteem to take a beating.

Rainy days may have been even worse, because then we would square dance. All the girls would line up on one side and the boys on the other and they would go down one line or the other and let the kids pick partners. GAH, the angst. God forbid you be among the last picked or if you seemed presumptuous and picked a partner who was above you in social station. A buzz will trill through the air as everyone whispered to each other and laughed behind your back.

The really sad fact is that in my middle school years I was NOT fat. I hit puberty before a lot of other kids in my class and I had boobs and hips, but I wasn't particularly large. I liked to ride my bike a lot and walked everywhere. I was active and probably REALLY healthy. But PE convinced me that I was HORRIBLE at exercising and I stopped trying.

But, it was still probably rude of me to greet the disclosure of some random guy's profession with, "OHHHH, You're THAT guy. GAWD, I hated PE teachers when I was in middle school." He laughed it off and turned back to the other person he had been talking to, and I went to hide in the women's restroom for the last 5 mins of lessons. Maybe next week I will remember to apologize for demeaning his profession, or maybe I will revert and just sit in the back corner and hope he doesn't notice me.