I did everything I could to impress this girl. I figured if I initially came across as half-way worldly wise she’d look upon me (literally: Margo was tall and I was awaiting my growth spurt) with more than a certain amount of lascivious interest, ‘Gosh, I’ve never known anyone who takes Latin, say something’. (‘O me miserum,’ came to mind.) So she was a little slow but she made up for that with looks that forced you to take Botany just to be near her.
It was a challenge I’d set for myself, actually. She was ‘pinned’ (this is old school high school, dear reader) to the team’s star quarterback, Tony Tuesday, a sobriquet we’d coined cause he managed his schedule to not have any classes on Tuesday, the day his Dad wasn’t using the car, a convertible no less, so he could cast it to lure young maidens and show them the gears (it was a stick shift). I had this need to move up in the high school social recognition order and what better way to get there than by successfully seducing young Margo? A winning touchdown, to keep the metaphor going.
One problem, I played football with the star quarterback. I wouldn’t put it past old TT, once he found out I was chasing Margo, to feed me to the on-rushing wolves of our main rivals, the nasty Tech Tornadoes whom we were scheduled to play for the championship this coming week.
‘OK guys,’ spat out TT in the huddle with a sneer in my direction, ‘this is a made up play; no need to block, I’ll hand off to squirt here (meaning me, I was still awaiting my growth spurt) and we’ll let his creative juices try to save his skin. On three.’
So I had a week to get Margo on side and TT off side, so to speak. A distraction came to mind. I had to get TT interested in someone else, to forget about Margo and open up the field to yours truly. (I had assumed Margo wouldn’t have time to seek out someone else and not too many guys who played football took Latin.)
Whom (I paid attention in English) to finger for Tony? And then it came to me, TT wouldn’t just take an interest in any girl, it would have to be someone special and that someone special would be Miss Mierzynski, the new phys ed teacher, aka Bouncy Bouncy, fresh out of university. Bingo!
TT would fall like the proverbial ton (this is pre-metric) of bricks if he thought for a minute that BB had the slightest interest in him. How to pull it off?
Well, it turns out, in those days, phys ed teachers had to teach a class besides forcing girls to run around in bloomers. And BB’s class was, get this, hygiene! Everybody took her class; even TT. This was a rapt class; everyone developed a strong interest in the proper way to wash ones hands and repeatedly asked BB to demonstrate, ‘I keep forgetting, do you start with the soap in the left hand or the right hand, can you show me again?’ as the way she did it produced a lot of cleavage.
Next day I hung around after her class. I’d brought in an old reader I’d found in our attic that expounded on the theme ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’ which I was sure would catch her interest. ‘Miss Mierzynski,’ I stammered while idly thumbing through the mint condition pages, ‘I confess this book is just a ruse, I just wanted to catch your attention to discuss another matter; a more serious matter.’
I had her full attention. First-year-out-of-university-female-teachers are keen. They’re there to nurture the less well educated. But let’s face it, they’re also sadly outclassed when it comes to competing with the deviousness of testosterone topped-out high school senior males.
‘I’m speaking for Tony,’ I ventured. She nodded, she knew whom (again that English class paying dividends) I was referring to; this was the only class where TT sat in the front row, ‘Tony is a little embarrassed to talk to you about his condition and we need Tony to be at his best for the up-coming football game this Friday.’
She was now totally absorbed, I could see her thinking, ‘Which condition?’ and mentally ticking off the possibilities starting with the A’s (‘Arthritis? Asthma?’ Even skipping back to, ‘Achalasia?’)
‘Tony,’ I continued with a lowering of the head to lend support that my pseudo awkwardness was the real deal; ‘Tony,’ I repeated to add just the right touch of seriousness and, after an interminable pause that had BB leaning closer and blinding me with her headlights, I managed to whisper, ‘has BO.’
Well, you could have knocked her over with a feather (I’ve often wondered how you could do that.) You could sense an immediate disappointment as if she had had a greater challenge in mind. All that late night cramming gone to waste.
‘BO?’ she echoed, leaning back in her chair and slipping into deep thought. ‘Well, that’s not too bad, I think we could help Tony with that. But how does that keep him from playing his best?’
I had the answer, ‘Well, it’s not so much Tony not playing his best but rather the rest of the team playing its best. Those huddles are murder. We’re so distracted we don’t often pay attention to the play he is calling. We can, so to speak, (and here I slowly brought my downcast eyes up to her eye level with a barely suppressed smile), fumble the ball.’
‘I see,’ BB innocently concluded, ‘Well, I’ll speak to Tony and give him my undivided attention; I’m sure I can get him ready for Friday.’
And that, dear reader, is how I conquered Margo. Actually, that’s a little harsh, I consoled her and slowly brought her out of her depressed state. It took some time, fortunately, so I dropped Botony.
‘Now where’s the Christmas in this story’, you ask?
Well Christmas is the time of the year for giving: I helped Margo learn some useful Latin, ‘I know habeus corpus means you shall have the body,’ she said with a wink; our team gave the school a championship and starting in the new year, Miss Mierzynski, the lovely BB, is subbing for my Latin teacher. Ho ho ho and a merry Christmas to you, too.