Suffering for Being Cool

Remember when you were a teenager and you wanted to be cool? And someone, probably your mother, warned that sometimes being cool would lead to you having some big problem, or some other vague pain in the future?

It is now the future. I'm suffering.

Today, there was no substitute for the absent P.E. teacher, so--per the policy of this school district--I got no planning period. I will be paid the hourly rate for this sacrifice--not the actual amount that losing my 50 minutes of time-with-no-students is worth, mind you--since there is not enough money in Vegas to compensate. BUT--I digress. The result of this is that I took my class out to the playground for a while to decompress, run and scream, etc.

Some boys were doing chin-ups on the monkey bars and challenged me to do one. Duh--I cannot pull up this body--no way. So they had another idea: hang up-side down! One of them showed me how he did it: you grab the overhead bar, you walk your feet up the support post and then fling them over the bar between your hands.

TA DA!! To everyone's amazement (including mine) I did it!! Yeah, cheering, huzzahs---Mrs. [EarthSignMama], the coolest teacher in the world!! Wow!! Do it again---she did!! Yeah!! Everyone look!!

Now it is eight hours later. I will hobble to the pool controls, turn on the hot tub, and as it heats, I will dig out my bottle of 800 mg. ibuprofen and take one. Then I will soak until I turn to a prune and fall (gently) into bed.

But, I was cool for a little while!!