Friday, June 22, 2012

Slack and Field Day


Yesterday my son Sam had a Bum Day. No, nothing to do with his derriere, other than he spent the whole day sitting on it. With my permission, of course, because yesterday was Track and Field Day at his school and I wouldn't make my worst enemy suffer through Track and Field Day.

It's fine if you're one of the five kids at every school who are actually athletic. For the rest of us, T&FD is exquisite torture. First of all, it is always held on the hottest freaking day of the year. Ninety-five degrees in the shade and, the beauty of T&FD is it's in a FIELD where there is no shade, so the sun just beats down on all the non-athletic, sweating-like-buckets, humiliated-beyond-belief puddles of torture-victim humanity we call schoolchildren.

It's not like we were ever trained for such events. Oh, OK, so maybe we had one session of standing long jump in gym class one day, just enough of a lesson to know you were never, ever, going to jump more than eight inches from the line. That, to me, was the stupidest of the events: stand there and jump. Really? What genius dreamt that up? "Geez, Bob, let's draw a line in the dirt and see who can jump further. Yup, yup, that sounds like fun, yup, yup."

High jump isn't much better. Again with the jumping – what are we, frogs? People are meant to stand on two feet, not leap about like gazelles. Obviously only a few of us are capable of doing that freakish lying on your back in middair thing that gets you across the pole. The rest of us have to deal with the gravity that gloms onto our sweaty backsides and keeps us anchored firmly to the dirt.

And don't even get me started on running races. I could not care less about who can run faster. You can run faster than me? Well, goodie for you. You go right ahead and sweat like a pig and twist your ankle and look smoking-hot-silly in the school gym uniform while all your wobbly bits shake and shudder as you blunder across the finish line – all that so you can get a green Participation ribbon.

I always vowed no child of mine would be forced to endure T&FD.

So Happy Bum Day, Sam.

***

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me in the upcoming Muskoka Novel Marathon.


I'm nowhere close to my goal and would appreciate any help you can give, even if it's a mention on your own blog. For all the details, click here. To donate, click on the Muskoka Chair over on the top right of my blog. I apologize for being so yappy about this but I think it's a great cause. You're never, ever too old to learn how to read and write.

38 comments:

  1. Good for you, mom! I was never good at track and field stuff. Now if they'd had a D&D marathon I would've hacked and slashed my way to the top.

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    1. I just asked everyone at work how they felt about track and field day and lo and behold they all LOVED IT. I know, they're freaks, right?

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  2. I can go you one further and say that gym class should be outlawed entirely lol.

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    1. I can see you had just as good a time as I did in gym class... HEY! Thanks for the shout-out, Delores, YOU ROCK!!!!!!

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  3. Did you ever witness Eskimo ear pulling? You take a length of fishing line and tie it to form a loop about two feet long, then two contestant each place the loop over one ear and each pulls trying to cause so much pain that the other contestant will yield. I have seen ears almost torn off in the Indian and Eskimo Olympics in Fairbanks, Alaska. How does standing broad jump sound now? OK, kids out in the hot sun once a year still not a good idea, but there are matters of degree.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. OH, I have seen that! Talk about stupid!!!!!! Yeah, track & field day was painful and boring but that ear pulling thing was downright dangerous.

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  4. I sat out field day too when I was in elementary school. I loathed gym and was so bad at it. Except parachute day. I loved the parachute.

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    1. What's a parachute day? How come I never had a parachute day? Awww,, gee.. ripped off of Parachute Day...Now my life sucks in yet another way!

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  5. Oh no! NOT TRACK & FIELD DAY!!!!! I hate those with a passion--incidentally that was usually also the day they pinched the fat on our arms to get a fat to muscle ratio reading and weighed us in front of a jury of our peers.

    Are these schools TRYING to kill us all???

    You are the coolest mom, EVER for letting your son stay home...and so am I because I never make my daughter go either!!! :D

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  6. I love you Square-Toothed Girl! "revelling in the coolest mom co-title now." :) :) :)

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  7. If I got this straight, you called your son off school on T&FD. What kind of a mother are you? You're only one mother. Every kid in the universe wants you replicated. Maybe except those kids in Asia, who get straight A plusses in everything, which must include T&FD.

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    1. HAHAHAHAHA! Well, they ARE thinking of cloning me and shipping me off in kids' Christmas stockings....
      Joanne, THANK YOU so much for your kind, kind, generous donation to the novel marathon. You are such a positive force in the blogosphere that it wouldn't in any way shape or form be the same without you. I am SUCH a fan! oxoxo

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  8. LOL ... I never minded it very much because it was always on the last day of school and we got sack lunches to eat outside. I don't remember much about the actual events, but figured that even if I didn't do very well I wouldn't see most of those people until the next fall.

    Kathy M.

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    1. Now there's a good attitude! Much better than mine. Me, I just sniveled and sweated and pouted. Mostly sweated and sniveled.

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  9. I'm a big believer in not torturing my children in the ways in which I was tortured! Cheers to sitting out T&FD.

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  10. I always thought I would easily win every race, jump over the highest bar, and throw the furthest discus/javelin. But somehow it never happened. Instead I played Rugby, Cricket, and I rowed 8's. Much more suited to my adequate morphology!

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    1. Oh I never thought of winning anything. Except maybe Most Dough-like Non-Athlete and Biggest Sucky Baby.

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  11. I did always like Field Day, but, then, I always got ribbons. Somewhere in there I exchanged my athleticism for readingism.

    Why is your kid still in school?

    And thanks for another support post for the Star Wars thing!

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    1. He's got a few days, yet. Here in Ontario the last day of public elementary school is June 27. When did yours get out?

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    2. Mine have been out 2 weeks, but their school goes later than everyone else's. The other schools have been out for a month.

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    3. Oh gawd, don't tell my kids that, they'll flip!!!!

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    4. Well... when do yours go back? Mine start again the middle of August. Or do you have a year round schedule?

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    5. The Tuesday after Labour Day, so yeah, it works out.

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  12. LOL!! Okay, I couldn't help laughing. Even though I was one of those kids that loved Track and Field Day (and yes, for the one year I ran track, the Long Jump was my favorite event to place in), your description of thing just tickled my fancy. So I hope Sam enjoyed his Bum Day...with ice cream. And I have to wonder, why is Track and Field day on the hottest day ever every year?

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    1. See? I know! Hottest day of the year! God's little joke on the non-athletes among us. I'm glad you liked it, Angela, I am. I actually asked everyone at work what they thought of Track and Field Day and they all loved it too! So I guess I'm just weird, but hey, I already knew that.

      I'd suggest the United Nations make June 21 International Bum Day but some people might get the wrong idea.

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  13. happy bum day... that's cute! :D

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  14. I didn't mind the jumping events or the short distance running (but now that you put it like that... hahahaahaha it does seem stupid!)... but I hated long distance running. Now I know, if Roz doesn't like that stuff when she's older, I don't have to send her. Hats off!

    P.S. What a lovely surprise to see your little head on mi' blog! Thanks, woah-man. I've been reading and admiring your creative talents and humour for a while. :) Shyly cropping up now and then... do di dooooooo.

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    1. Carrie, I thought I already WAS following you and I was shocked and appalled that I wasn't. I noticed that yesterday when I was updating my blogroll. Here you are dropping by all the time and saying nice things and reading my crap and I wasn't even following you! My sincere apologies. You have a great blog, very, very funny and I'm now an official fan!

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  15. I wasn't born with wings on my feet or springs in my knees, so I was always a miserable person on those events. I volunteered to watch the little kids for parents.

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  16. I attempted to make a doctors appointment for both boys (that would leave them unable to return to school for the whole day) on Field day and they both looked at me like I was crazy.

    If my mother had done that for me as a child, I would have happily gouged out one of my own eyes so she wouldn't be wasting the co-pay.

    Seriously? Who's kids are they and where did they get their athletic gene?

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  17. I was one of the five kids who was good at track and field but sadly, nobody ever noticed. The popular kids always "won". I never let my kids do stuff like that for their school . We did lots of bum days with the kids. Nearly always, you could find us at the beach;)

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  18. Happy Bum Day, Sam!

    I always enjoyed our field day(s), even though I was nowhere near athletic. I was outside, I wasn't sitting in a classroom being bored to death, and what more could one ask for? As long as I wasn't dead last in every event, I was content to just try doing stuff I sucked at.

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  19. Track and field day, in my opinion, is one of the low lights of the year. Good story. (I think you're a good writer, really.)

    Funny; when I first wrote that it came out "Rack and field." Sounds about right.

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  20. My Mommeh also thinks reading is more fun than running all around like a maniac!

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  21. You are such a good Mom. Hope you had a happy burn day too!

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  22. Well I know from experience that there are teachers who wish it would go away. Then again there are both kids and staff who has a blast because they put some fun into it. Only those who were serious contenders had to perform with high expect ions and they were on their separate path all throughout the day. Rest of them did more pass the egg type of stuff and all got snacks along the day and a movie in the library was in the rotation.

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  23. I'm very pleased to see that you have a GNOME.

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