Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Exploiting My Formerly Awkward Self

Formerly? Isn't the A in HAM for Awkward?

Ohhh shudddup, you!

Yes, I can still be kind of awkward with regard to social situations (I tend to have diarrhea of the mouth and talk beyond the socially appropriate, "non-awkward" boundary) but this post is neither here nor there.

And no, it's for Ann.

This post is going to reminisce about the physiological miscommunications between my brain and my limbs during the most painfully awkward period of my life:

ADOLESCENCE

!!!!Duhn-dun-duhn!!!!

It is an explanation of my #4 on a recent meme.

First, ya'll have to remember that I was full of angst in highschool, having been uprooted from the only home I'd ever known...

We moved to a VERY small town in CO that I hated with as much teenage dispair and misery that I could muster. Not only had I been removed from the life I'd always known, the father I'd only just gotten to know, but now I was in a cow-poke town full of machismo, ignorance, and plain non-acceptance of new people - and I was going to graduate here...yippee.

Adding to the fact that I was an outsider, I was an early bloomer and had long since filled out while many of the other girls at school were skinny little twigs. On top of that I had glasses that took up my entire face and teeth that begged for braces. In other words, I was an easy target for the jokes of others, and had not yet found a shield snarky enough to fend off the insults.

If that weren't enough, one day during sophomore year, we were playing indoor soccer for PE. We were in the gym, wherein the walls were stone with a layer of Bulldog Blue paint covering them.

I got excited as I saw an opportunity to score, and started to accelerate.

However, the ball changed direction and my brakes did not turn on despite my brain screaming at my feet to STOP! DAMNIT! STOP RIGHT NOW!!!

CRASH - THUNK!

Yes, that's the sound of my very awkward self hitting the stone wall and then collapsing to the ground with a concussion.

When I came to, my PE teacher/Advisor was asking me how many fingers he was holding up - three. What day was it - Monday, uggghhh, I hate Mondays. My head dropped back down.

In the nurse's office, my mom was notified and I was taken to the doctor. Said doctor was the father of one of my classmates. Talk about mortification. During the exam, he oh-so-politely informed me that I had blue paint on the side of my glasses. Bulldog Blue paint.

That took a while to live down. Ok, it never really died. I was always the girl who'd given herself a concussion playing indoor soccer. Oh, but wait, it gets better.

The next year, again in PE, just prior to the end of the school year, we were messing around in the wrestling gym. In other words, a padded room, as the floor was lined with wrestling mats. We'd decided to play some kind of tag and all was laissez faire until...I caught my foot between the mats and twisted my ankle something awful.

Another trip to the doctor, same as the previous year, meant another explanation of how I'd come to be there. Hence, his proclamation that perhaps MCHS ought to waive the PE credits requirement for my graduation as PE was clearly a health hazard to me.

That was bad enough, but the cherry on the humiliation sundae was the fact that I was now known as the girl who hurt her self in a padded room.

I have since grown into coordinated usage of my body's limbs. For real!

1 comment:

  1. I was extremely awkward and injury-prone as a kid too. I think my feet grew faster than the rest of me.

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