A True and Traumatic Story from Fourth Grade

In order for you to understand this story, you need to take a good look at the nice, 

thick rubber sole on this shoe.

When I was in fourth grade, a shitty thing happened.  My teacher got killed in a car accident on his way home.  We loved him and were devastated.  They replaced him with Ms. Benson, a sub we'd had before.  At first it was okay since she was at least familiar to us.  Thing is, though, we'd never had to deal with her for more than one day at a time in the past.  On a daily basis, well, she just sucked.

Case in point:  We were required by state law to have gym class every day.  A couple of times a week we'd have a real gym teacher.  The rest of the time, Ms. Benson was in charge.  Even though she had an entire storage room full of equipment to choose from, she made us play kickball EVERY FUCKING DAY until June.  Any sport played every day all damned year gets boring.  For me, it was more than boring.  It was an exercise in futility.  See, I wasn't a very large child.  When it was my turn to kick, since I wasn't packing a lot of power, the ball wouldn't go very far at all and I always got out.  EVERY FUCKING DAY.  Meanwhile, the more physically powerful kids made it to bases and got to actually PLAY kickball.  I spent most of my time on the bench or way in the outfield where my uselessness wouldn't interfere with other kids' getting to actually PLAY.

Now Ms. Benson should have known that if a smart kid has extra time on her hands and is annoyed with you in general and really resents the fact that you aren't her dead teacher that she loved, something bad might happen.  Actually, nothing truly bad happened.  I just put all that extra thinking time to use and came up with a solution.  

See, I was allowed to wear my beloved saddle oxfords in gym even though they weren't sneakers because they had a nice rubber sole that wouldn't damage the gym floors (see pic).  I eventually got the bright idea that if the shoes, particularly the right one, were reinforced properly, I might actually have a chance at whaling the ball far enough to get to first base.  I put my plan into action.  It involved stealing as many metal thumbtacks as it'd take to load the front of my right shoe with metal.  I did just that and then...

The next day in gym when it was my turn to kick, I WHALED that sucker.  Well, it was whaling as far as I was concerned.  I made it to first base AND I was laughing like a maniac because my genius plan worked.  Until some little bitch narced me out- "Ms. Benson!!!  Little Angry Gardener loaded her shoe with tacks!  She's cheating!!!"  And with that, Ms. Benson made her cat's ass face and called me off the field. 

This story has no moral.  I just wanted to state for the record that Ms. Benson is a jerk.  Also, I loved my saddle oxfords, even if my tacks did get confiscated.  Oh, and I still wanna kick her in the shins with a fully loaded saddle oxford.  

The End.