GoofBoy is distraught.
“Dad, I’m having a problem at school”
“What is it?” I ask, ready for anything.
“I don’t like phys-ed.”
“I know what you mean,” he smiled. We always called it gym, but at orientation day, when I said that the teachers got all huffy. Just like everything else in our society, gym teachers are prone to title inflation. So I have learned to call them phys-ed teachers so they won’t push me up against the lockers and give me wedgies.
“I didn’t like phys-ed when I was your age. We always played dodgeball and somehow I always got hit in the head and the lenses in my glasses would pop out.”
“I wish we could play dodgeball. No, the problem is we are always doing drills and never actually playing anything. Phys-ed used to be my favorite, now I hate it.”
“Are you sure you are my son?”
I hated gym as a kid, it involved everything I disliked - competition, sports, sweat, other children, and big people yelling at me. I can't shoot a basket, climb a rope, or remember not to use my hands playing soccer.
MamaGoof had similar feelings. Is it possible MamaGoof and I – two awkward, strange people – have some recessive normal chromosomes? Like when two dark-haired people have a blond kid? I ended my reverie on genetics and focused on my son. “Trust me buddy, it could be worse.”
“How, I am a boy, I need to play sports.”
“I had a square dancing unit in gym when I was your age.”
GoofBoy’s eyes grew wide.
“It was the worst. First you had to pick a girl to dance with and everyone would say you liked that girl. Then she would yell at you for doing everything wrong. Plus you had to hold her hand.”
“Dad, you were soooo lucky!" GoofBoy exclaimed, "I love to dance and at least we’d be moving!”
The kid is so normal - it’s weird.
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