I was not always fat.
In the 3rd grade, I weighed about 6 pounds, and I was 5’11”. I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much. I was skinny. In the 6th grade, I was skinny. In the 7th grade, I was eating a lot, and I was still 5’11”. By 9th grade, I was a solid 200 pounds. Not bad, really. In the 10th grade, I hurt a knee in football, which is another blog, but yeah, Kid Funk did it, and I gained about 60 pounds over the course of 6 months.
I carried it well.
However, in this particular Memoir Monday, it was kind of a bad thing.
My senior class had gone on a field trip to ropes course in Claremore. It wasn’t the whole senior class, just a few of us. The ropes course was generally lame, and it was supposed to teach us about teamwork and what not. It was not really effective.
Then we got to The Pole.
The Pole was a telephone pole that went about 30 feet in the air. You climbed said pole, got to the top, and then jumped out to either grab a pull up bar, or a net, it was your choice.
I don’t do heights.
The Bible specifically says, “Lo, I am with you always.” Jesus said that. That’s real.
Somehow I got talked into doing this. Talk of teamwork and what not, there may have also been talk questioning my sexual orientation and/or etiquette.
So I got harnessed up. (made my junk look HUGE. Question that, bitches.) I got hooked up to my billet line, and I looked down the other end of that billet line, and there stood happy as could be ropes course instructor, who maybe weighed 100 pounds. Little bubbly teenage college chick, about as big around the poop I took that morning. Yeah. Not gonna happen.
She explained to me that the tree trunk the billet line was wrapped around would support most of my weight. And that through physics or some other math, I would actually weigh less than her after it was all said and done. Well, the fact was, she was kind of pretty. All my life, pretty women have been able to talk me into things against my better judgement. This was a perfect example. Not wanting to seem like the biggest vajay ever, I started up that mother lovin pole. (TWSS)
I got about half way up and decided this was the stupidest thing I’d ever done. There was no way that this chick was going to be able to lower my fat ass all the way to the ground. However, I kept on. I got to the top.
30 feet up.
30.
Feet.
UP.
I stood there, and tried to decide whether or not I was going for the net, or the bar. I decided bar.
I hollered down to ol girl, and told her I was going to jump. She said okay, and gave me a look that I’m sure now was one of massive concern, running the gambit from the tensile strength of the rope, to her ability to make sure fatty didn’t drop 30 feet to his death, thus resulting in a party lawsuit from his parents.
I wiped my hands on my pants, and I jumped for the bar.
Folks, it was a 3 foot jump, straight out. I don’t have the timing exactly right, but I’m sure that it took less than a second for me to traverse that distance. In that fraction of time, my hands went from completely dry, to slicker than a slip and slide covered with KY and the morals of the Democratic party.
I hit the bar.
I grabbed the bar.
I slipped off the bar, pretty much the same as you’d see in any movie ever, and began a descent, headfirst…
…TO THE GROUND.
I fell maybe 3 or 4 feet. It took 30 minutes. I know this, because I was there.
The rope caught, and I was jerked back to reality faster than O.J. when he heard the verdict. I stared down at the ground, and saw that skinny college girl had saved life, along with what appeared to be a very badly rope burned tree. Like, maybe it was smoking.
Two of my “friends” had gone on this particular trip, and as I was lowered to the ground, they returned from some trees where they had bolted to, claiming, “We thought you were gonna fall on us!”
Asshats.
A couple of the girls that had gone were crying, and one of them wouldn’t stop until she hugged me to make sure I was alive. It was pretty much the most traumatic thing that has ever happened on any field trip EVER.
No one else did The Pole climb. I don’t think anyone wanted to test that rope again.
I can’t say that I blamed them.