A bargain at twice the price!

Just a dollar!

Dude, I would have paid a dollar to get out of gym class. I would have paid THREE.

I'm not alone here. Everyone hates gym. It's a peculiarly scarring experience that we all must share. (Those who enjoyed gym class, the exit is behind you. Take your dodge ball and begone!)

Let me count the reasons I detested gym class:

1. When I was an 8th grader, we had mixed gym with the 7th graders. We had to line up in alphabetical order for attendance, and I had the misfortune to be named something that sat me next to two blonde 7th graders who smelled my social incompetence. I recall feeling outraged, not so much by their snide insults, but by the fact that I was being PICKED ON by SEVENTH GRADERS, when as an 8th grader, I should have been exempt from their scorn! Hadn't I earned that, at least? Goddamn seventh grade bitches.
2. Playing racquetball, or badminton, or something with racquets, I swung hard at a ball (birdie?) and the racquet slipped from my weak grasp, and nearly brained the "coach". I got in so much trouble, which, had I deliberately thrown it at him, I would have deserved. I was pissed that I hadn't done it on purpose, as long as I was paying the price.
3. Indirect gym trauma, for which I was not present: Once two friends of mine were in they locker room changing after class, when a mean bully girl grabbed one of them and smashed her into the lockers (her infraction? giving bully girl a "look" during class! yes! classic!) and proceeded to pummel the poor thing. My second friend raced from the locker room to find the "coach", a male gym teacher. "Coach! Billie Jo* is beating up Sally in the locker room!" Coach's response? "I can't go in there, it's the girls' locker room!" Wow! Don't you feel safe now??
4. Foursquare! For when "Coach" is feeling lazy! It's a game based on ganging up three-to-one to get someone 'out'! How can that be a problem??

Are gym classes just unsupervised? The torment and anguish I'm recalling suggests that the teachers were mildly stoned at all times, or that they hated me as much as Billie Jo did. How much weed can you get with one dollar per kid per day?

*Real name, no joke.