Cirque du Kinda Juggling



Do you remember where you kinda learned how to juggle?  Because I remember where you kinda learned.  You kinda learned to juggle where everyone kinda learns:  3rd Grade Physical Education class.  

If I remember correctly, you still remember that day as if it were yesterday.  It was the day that your high-wire dreams of circus performance as a lucrative profession came crashing down to the safety net-less ground of reality, shattering both knee caps and a C7 vertebrae.  Let me recount it for you. 1,2,3,4,5.  Now let me retell it for you (I think I can still remember):
  
Your class entered the gym (single file of course).  Normally there was some sort of equipment laid out on the floor that provided an ever-so-subtle hint as to what you were doing that day (basketballs for Basketball, jump ropes for Jumpy Rope, paint rollers for Parking Lot Paint Time, etc.).  But on that day, there were just two large cardboard boxes in the center of the gym.  "Whoa dude," said a classmate, "I wonder what's in those boxes."  

"I dunno," you cooly replied, "but I hope whatever is in them is cowabunga."  

Your gym teacher sat your class down and explained that you would be learning a new game, called "juggling." She enlightened you on the general mechanics, opened the first box, and pulled forth what you would later call the Great Deceiver:  colored handkerchiefs.

She passed out three colored handkerchiefs to each person (You got Magenta, Cyan, and Fatigue).  You tossed up the first handkerchief, then the second, then the third.  Then you caught and threw back up the first handkerchief.  A wry smile came to your face and your eyes widened.  

"OMG," you thought to yourself, "I'm totally JUGGLING."  Suddenly thoughts of big tops and dating a clown person named Borpo began racing through your mind.  But before those thoughts could cross the finish line, the gym teacher opened the second box, and with it, absolute devastation.

Tennis balls.  Fun, innocent looking tennis balls.  3 were issued to each student.  It only took 7.5 seconds with the tennis balls to realize that you'd never be a professional juggler.  Broken-hearted, you threw your tennis balls at the student next to you and walked a walk of sorrow and disappointment.  "Screw this, I'm going to get a square pizza from the cafeteria."

And that's kinda exactly how you kinda learned to juggle.  Kinda

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

couldn't be more true

Ryan Moss, TYC said...

We had crusty beanbags instead. But same principal and same massive disappointment. I'm gonna go play tether ball.