Hot, Baby, Hot!
When I was a kid, I lived in fear of something:
Puking in the school cafeteria.
Y’all know what I’m talking about.
It happened to at least one unlucky soul every school year as long as I can remember.
It was the ultimate humiliation.
I don’t remember much about grade school (besides Mrs. Mace who was 112 and still teaching 2nd grade) but I can conjure every puking incident that ever occurred.
To wit: Winter 1968. The cafeteria is jammed. It’s hot because our coats are still on from recess. We’re sweaty. The kind of sweaty only a Midwestern kid swaddled in wool can understand. The hairnet–wearing lunch ladies dole out over-cooked food to an unfortunate few whose mothers either worked (what? worked???) or couldn’t be bothered to slap a hunk of bologna between two pieces of stale Wonder bread and stuff it in a bag. The rest of us enjoy mom-made PBJs and slurp down white milk purchased with the 3 pennies taped to the lids of our metal lunchboxes. Mine was plaid. Yes. I said plaid. Not Brady Bunch, not Flipper…..plaid. I fucking HATE plaid. Go ahead and laugh, shitheads! My mom was frugal and she probably got a really sweet deal on that beauty beaucause no other consumer on the planet would buy it. Just like the army green parkas with fake fur collars she got for $15.95 that EVERYONE in our family wore including my grandfather. I think they’re still wrapped in plastic and occupy a remote corner of closet space in my childhood home. As for the lunchox…well….I’m sure my dad dug it out of the trash after I attempted to wipe it from my memory when I entered middle school. It’s probably stuffed full of old shooting medals or spent shotgun shell cartridges. I suspect I’ll run across it again some day.
Anyway…..Robbie M. (name has been changed to protect his dignity) had a caring mommy like mine who packed a wholesome meal every day in Robbie’s GI Joe lunchbox (it was not plaid). That lunchbox will forever be etched in my memory because Robbie hurled into it with a vengeance like he’d been subjected to a diabolical tilt-a-whirl operator at the local fairgrounds. Poor kid. I still think about him from time to time and what caused him to hurl so violently. If you asked me, I think Robbie had a nasty ear infection because there’s only one thing that can produce a color that distinct: liquid erythromycin…cherry flavored.. Robbie’s mommy must have forgotten to pour the Cheerios that morning because you never give a kid liquid erythromycin on an empty stomach. Just a word of advice for any of young parents out there who don’t want their kids to end up on Jerry Springer with some unresolved self-esteem issues when they’re pushing the big 5-0.
Meeeeemories…like the corners of my mind. Misty, water color…never mind.
I wish I had better grade school memories… like, oh, I don’t know….a teacher who tried to inspired me to become something or another? A teacher so filled with a passion for learning that it motivates even the weakest link in the academic food chain? The kind that accomplished people thank 30 years later when they’re receiving a profound award?
But no.
I only have memories of incidents involving other children that I prayed would never happen to me. Kids can be so self-absorbed!
So why this particularly memory?
Hot yoga.
Hot like an in-fucking-ferno yoga.
For those who have never experienced this unique form of fitness torture, imagine this:
A room full of profusely sweaty people with lots of tattoos smelling of curry twisting themselves into knotted, agonizing positions in a room heated to about 145 degrees with 40% humidity.
And I PAID for this?
Yes.
And during that first, brutal step toward fitness enlightenment, I had but one thought:
Do. Not. Vomit.
Hot yoga, oh my. It’s tough enough without the heat and the mix of sweats.
But hell, it’s great for the body isn’t it?
Ah, memories. Mine was tomato soup, in a wool suit of course. Mom wasn’t home so I had to stay at school. Instead of sitting in our usual circle, it was a horseshoe, with me in the open end. I still have nightmares. I’m sure you got that wool suit I outgrew. Any by the way, my lunch box was much better than yours. I just got it out of dad’s basement, after he unloaded the shotgun shells from it.
Yeah, yeah. Yours was Huckleberry Hound. I’m still haunted by the image that lunchbox projected. Huckleberry Hound projected a fun, exuberant image.
Plaid screams “Leathery Scotsman in kneesocks and a skirt.”
Hey, if I were you I would stop bitchin’ about the lunchbox. Mom was so damn used to buying girls cloths she made me wear a pair of those white and black shoes cheerleaders wore. It still gives me fuckin nighmares of doing backflips off of a pyramid. And by the way, my girls love the green parkas, they are back in style…just kiddn.
Give me a W.H.I. Give me an N.E.R. Give me a BOO. Give me a HOO. Give me a BOO HOO HOO!
What does it spell….WHINER.
GOOOOO WHINERS!
Sorry, bro. Just couldn’t resist.
As for the parkas…I am still traumatized.