|
SPORTS DAY LOOMS
Well, school Sports day looms this weekend. I have inherent fear seeping from every pore. Especially, when they ask parents to judge races that get very controversial and end up with heated exchanges...("Give me that sticker, my Timothy was first ..you fascist!" Leading you, to choose your words carefully..."How is Timothy's diet since they wired his jaws together?" ) Even more terrifying...parents being coerced to take part in an event themselves. There is always one Dad or Mum who does the London marathon every year, and expectantly wins breaking into a brisk stroll, while the rest of us, ageing candidates for heart attacks and St John's ambulance, don't have a crash cart in sight.
I run in about four different directions at once and roll to a finish. No thanks.
Solution?
I like to slip into the toilet on these occasions (I wish people would watch where they pee.) and borrow some facepaints enroute. Black my eye and wear my T shirt over my head, tied at the back, 'Bluebeard 'style. Stick a broom under me arm and a chairleg down me trousers and hide in the bouncy castle pretending to be an inflatable pirate, holding a corner up.
Bouncy castIes are not cheap are they? (Must be inflation?) I hired one for a charity event once and it cost £40 and then after a 'friction' problem. (Not what you are thinking) It rubbed up against a brick adjacent wall, so, with every 'bounce' it gradually wore a hole. It cost my event £150 when it accidentally punctured. It was a 'Jungle Book' themed one, with a hole as big as a 10p in Baloo's butt! (geographically perfect though) I put a patch on it hoping 'they' (the bouncy castle company) would not notice, but it ended up looking like a pimple on a bears arse, quite literally. (True story)
Anyway, I will avoid at alll costs any sudden movements on Sports day, and rather, run the Tombola or do the raffle, if they want to make cowards like me useful. Beth hates it too. Bless her, she is now growing like a weed and trying to get used to parts of her body growing at different speeds. All this tripe about "It's not about winning ,its about taking part" or "Its about being part of a team, not winning". So, why do we have 'SATS' , streams etc, 'pigeonholing' our kids, if its not about competition? They have to reach implausible targets all year around, jumping through mental hoops, and then on Sports day, it's ok to come last and be jeered at for the next 12 months thereafter? Imagine your surprise when your boss sacks you later in life because your sales job was not about 'winning' orders, and 'turning up' for work instead?
Homework is for psychotics, don't you think? Nothing they learn is useful. if I were a teacher, I would give them homework that might project them in life. Like how to fool a speedtrap by first varnishing the number plate yo a high gloss and placing a small rod behind the number plate to create just the right angle to reflect back to the camera 'blinding it', or just hitting the bastard at 140 miles an hour and it doesn't know whet the f***ks going on!
Practical things like, how to carry a short length of fusewire into restaurants and place in your leftovers in order to get a free meal.
Or bribing gay people for money when you take a camcorder to a public toilet.
I actually achieved being 'Captain of Athletics' at school because I cheated at all sports day events. I used Prittstick in the egg and spoon race. The three legged race? I practised for weeks with my twin sister, and chose to do it with the smallest and skinniest child in my class, so the crowd, wouldn't notice when the little runt tripped. I could still run towards the tape, dragging his broken body behind me. The real knack is to tie you legs with football shinpads in the socks, so when you tie your partners leg to your own, tight as you like, cutting off your partners blood circulation, he can run completely painfree as well! Another wheeze would be to 'help' other three legged runners, by pretending to help 'tie their legs to each other' for them before a race, but surreptitiously, tie their shoe laces together instead.
If I ran the refreshments stand. Strawberry sauce on ice cream was exchanged for Calpol, and M&Ms with my Mum's antidepressants. A mortar and pestle from the science lab prepared 'Sherbet Liquorice Dabs' formed from a mixture of icing sugar 'cut' with crushed ecstasy tablets and Moroccan Black 'dabs'.
The Moroccan Black 'liquorice' would always make you feel sexy and would often mean a trip to the Nit nurse. Underage sex is very wrong and you could end up with 'allsorts'.
On the shot put? My Dads carpet bowls were much lighter as they were made of wood and not iron. I just used a magic marker to black out the brown colour. The sack race was a cinch as I would clip on trouser braces to the sack edge leaving my arms to swing freely to gain momentum. The 'dressing up' race was a piece of cake. I put all the dressing up clothes on, first, under my sports wear. In all the furore, as I raced, I just took off the clothes layer by layer, that I had stuck to my body with velcro. Thus, creating an optical illusion, that I was already fully dressed at the end of the race. One year, I could not retrieve my school gym kit after such an event and went home in a tweed twin set, a tight bunned wig and a cheesecloth blouse. Two parents complained to me for punishing their kids with detention and another accused me of allowing truants to steal from his shop. At thirteen , on this occasion, I was better dressed than my headmistress and could easily pass myself as her. Which was a little disconcerting as she was a lesbian with a lazy eye, and stunk of haddock.
My Father saw me at the front adorned as I was and never batted an eye. I asked him later, why he ignored me dressed like a teenage dyke with a fetish for Oxfam, and he just said.
"I guessed it all along."
More winning ways were to ...
.. use Araldite on other competitors starting blocks. The Javelin event was easy to fake a 'good throw'. I would buy some inchwide wooden dowel from Jewsons. Whittle each end and then paint with silver Hammerite and tape up the middle with insulating tape. Chuck that little baby, and it sticks in the ground like a Norman arrow. The high jump was a hoot too. When the previous jumper knocked off the bar I would courteously put it up at the new height for myself, and affix the ends to the stands with strong elastic bands. They may twang your 'little soldier' a bit, midflight, but it would always stay up longer and hardly ever dropped off.
A hand mirror shone into the eyes of good sporting competitors helped my chances a bit, but the sick bay got much busier.
The pole vault was an easy one. A junior hacksaw could be used to 'doctor' the opponents pole. I used a Frisbee in the 'discus throwing' event, wrapping the other authentic discs with double sided sellotape. Relay batons could be replaced with very hot saveloys from the spectators Barbecue, and switched just before the race, keeping a regular baton for myself.
The 1000 metres would require me to put gravel in their training shoes first. The 100 metre dash could be sabotaged with fishing line at the starting line stretched from one of the goal posts to the cricket pavilion. Stretch and seal over the netball basket was a chuckle. I made hockey balls out of Plaster of Paris. Penalty shoot out? Simple. Good old itching powder in the 'goalies' shorts prior, to the game.
If all else would fail I would let off a stink bomb in the officials caravan, and when empty, destroy all records of the proceedings and replace them with pornography. Or, switch the starting pistol, with a pistol grip plant sprayer. I can tell you that there is nothing more entertaining than watching athletes on the vaulting horse when you have recently painted it with Copydex, or lightly sprinkled push pins on gym mats. But my favourite jape was during weight lifting events where KY jelly was used on the steel bar during the 'squat thrusts.' Gluing thruppenny bits to tennis courts to distract or trip players and ballboys made for stiff competition too.
Epsom salts in the tea urn would ensure a long queue for the loo and a howler. Robin starch could be sprayed on the napkins. Often I would smear attendees seats with honey to attract wasps for more enthusiastic 'cheering' screams and gestures.
A quick trip to the changing rooms to steal kids clothes and put them in the bursars stationery cupboard, meant that teachers would not get home for the weekend. Swapping raffle prizes for items out of the confiscated items/lost property box ,would always cause a bit of stir. Salt in the jelly. Bluetack on the wicket bales. Tennis balls filled with 'Quincy' from hypodermic syringes, that sort of thing. Tying Playtex a 'cross your heart' bra from the school TV Ariel would attract some press coverage, too.
Exlax chocolate for energy would keep you 'running' most of the day. As with Andrews liver salts to fizz up the lemonade a bit for thirsty sportsters.
When I think of all the fun I had and how I realised getting suspended or expelled was more reward than punishment. How things have changed?
Now, its just no fun having to distribute performance enhancing drugs to kids these days, is it?
Incidentally?
Why are all school sports day officials from Yorkshire with a P.A system that sounds like it is being operated at twenty fathoms, and someone has just switched off the guy's iron lung?
Sports day, sucks. Although I can remember one trainee teacher I wouldn't mind wriggling into the sack with for a few jumps just to see who would finish first?
Wicked boy! (Did I really say that out loud?)
Beth has to make a 'predatory animal ' for this Saturday's event too! She chose a boiled eagle. With talents and a big wings ban. We made the head out of Polly's right spleen and the feathers that were felt, touched again, and then glued all over. I must admit it is a 'beastie' to be proud. I will photograph it and send it to you. Looks good enough to add to any endangered species. It has a 'mechanism' as B calls it. It 'articulates' , but can't speak at all, either? She loves it; in fact she went right into raptors over it. She said "Daddy, what about the bill?" I said I would just stop her a months pocket money.
Last year it was to be a homemade corgi for the Queens birthday? A stuffed toy you had to make from scratch. I became deranged trying to make this effigy with failing eyesight into the wee hours. I had never tried this idiotic idea before in my life. Beth was in bed and Andrea as motivated with such a creative prospect as a mollusc on a giant glacier with two heavy bags of shopping, so I was left with the task. Following my daughters strict directions? (Hang on! Why did I have to make it? It wasn't my project?) I was almost broken down with tears and in need of mainstream counselling afterwards and struggling to turn the thing inside out to stuff it. Of course, having no previous taxidermy tuition whatsoever, the finished product ended up looking the hybrid of a mutant Mongoose crossed with a ferret that had just caught its head in a runaway combine harvester. It was totally disfigured for its fluffy, entire life. One of its misshapen paws was bigger than the head itself. The tail was underneath its tummy making it look like a Meercat with a hard on. The only thing left to do was to stitch up its point of entry. It's highly stretched anus, at which point I had just run out of thread.
Yes, you've guessed.
When it was exhibited at the 'Best corgi' competition, its arse exploded and the embarrassed judge started to pull my wife's discarded black underwear out like a surprised magician, leaving my corgi toy with an expression I had already given it in the first place more fitting to natural childbirth before they call for the forceps.
|
