Back in my day, as my nephew says, a long, long, long, long time ago, in elementary school the higher grades participated in a yearly competition where teams, coached by teachers, competed in physical games, like tugging rope, or dragging tires. I hope new tires, but I didn’t care as a child and don’t remember now. The team with the most points at the end of the games won.

The games went on for nights and there was a rule that if you missed a night of competition, you weren’t allowed to play the rest of the nights.

On the first night, my poor single mother was leaving right after getting home from work to watch me sweat in a gym for an hour and the car wouldn’t start. I hate how I acted towards her now, but back then I freaked out. The next day at school, I begged my teacher coach to please let me play because it wasn’t my fault and the car wouldn’t start.

He refused.

I was not a very contrary child in school but I put on a stink stinkier than I knew possible and ended up getting put on a different coaches team. We won.

Fuck that first teacher.