Maybe that gym teacher in the 7th grade was going through a divorce and needed to vent some frustration the day he made you run laps until you puked — why judge the man with the worst job in the entire school that doesn't involve handling urinal cakes?

And so what if the Presidential Fitness Challenge was a load of B.S.; at least we got a cool lapel pin we could poke people with.

Such were the ponderings that Ray and I had last week as we reminisced about our 7th grade gym classes. Despite going to different schools, we found our gym experiences were remarkably similar.

"Complete waste of time," I pronounced. "Look at me, I still can't do a pull up without asking my girlfriend to hold my feet."

Ray nodded in agreement, adding, "You're telling me! I've offered her money, and I STILL can't get your girlfriend to touch my feet."

But the longer we discussed gym class, the more obvious it became that gym was filled with more than just smelly shorts, sprained ankles, and awkward demonstrations of puberty.

So Ray and I developed a Credo to share with every junior high or high school boy or girl hoping for a doctor's note to exempt them from Track & Field Day, a Credo to help ease the pain of being laughed at while trying to touch your toes without bending your knees.

Here's our Credo: ALL I REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW about the crap that life was going to throw my way and how to deal with it, I learned in gym class. These are the things we learned:

All I Really Needed To Know I Learned In Gym Class

Never pick your nose during dodge ball.

Size doesn't matter. Remember that little kid who would hide in his locker when you snapped him with towels? He could run faster than you and do a hell of a lot more pull ups than you, that little punk.

Choose your battles wisely, and always choose the fat kid in Duck, Duck, Goose.

No matter what you're attempting, whether it's a shuttle run or a rope climb, you'll always do a little bit better when members of the opposite sex are watching.

Stupid rules are a fact of life, like "No Gum Allowed In Gym Class". In the history of the world, no one has ever fallen while running and choked on chewing gum, except for that fat piece of crap Jason Quarters who ruined it for everyone else.

It pays to take precautions. Write down the combination to your locker just in case you forget, unless you're cool with wearing gym shorts all day.

The face is always off limits.

Try not to pass along rumors. No matter how reliable the source, there is no way that cheerleader with the lisp was caught touching herself in the girls' locker room.

Be genuine and speak from the heart, especially when trying to convince others that you were not touching yourself in the locker room.

Stop touching yourself in the locker room.

Stereotypes are rooted in ignorance. Your gym teacher might not have been a lesbian, despite the hair on her legs and face. She could have been Hungarian, or a transvestite, or a transvestite Hungarian.

Always practice "CYA". Dropping the soap in the gym shower is one step away from that scene in HBO's "Oz".

Outside of a hypothetical situation, never again will you and thirty others cling to the same parachute.

Math is important. For example, the odds of a boy having his gym shorts pulled down is directly proportional to the number of girls in the vicinity times the quantity of gym socks stuffed into his jock strap.

Live in the moment. Remember that sport you were good at, the one where you were picked first for a few weeks? Bask in such glory while you have it, because it will end too soon — probably the same day the basketball team returns from camp.

War is hell, and in the 7th grade locker room, aerosol deodorant qualifies as a chemical weapon.

There is no such thing as the atomic wedgie, just torn underwear and shattered dreams.

Copyright © 2006 Andy Murphy
Please do not remove the copyright from this work.

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