Coming Clean (Through My Shorts)

I don’t consider myself an easily embarrassed person, no matter how people probably wanted me to be, or saw me—too much body I didn’t know what to do with, awkward phase that lasted well into high school, being unabashedly into my favorite bands and fandoms while others were “casual” about their interests.

But there was one time, one vaguely traumatizing moment in middle school (which is already traumatizing enough) that will haunt me forever.

It began with a home-packed lunch.

Now, to this day, I couldn’t tell you what I ate that day. I wish I could tell you it was a normal lunch—PB&J, some chips, an apple, a baggie of carrots, maybe a Rice Krispie Treat to round it out. But based on how this story ends, I know this lunch was anything but normal.

In seventh grade, I had the misfortune of having P.E. right after lunch. This became a problem exactly twice in the nine-week quarter this occurred. The first time was when Picture Day lasted well into the afternoon, and I had to have my yearbook picture taken red-faced, sweaty, and frizzy-haired.

The second time was now.

As the bell rang to signal the end of lunch period, I packed up my things to head over to the gym, conveniently located right next to the cafeteria (just about the only convenient thing about the gym).

Upon exiting the locker room, having changed into my “gym clothes”—a t-shirt and shorts I had brought from home and washed once a week—I was dismayed to realize that, with it being near the end of the quarter, we would be doing our P.E. “final”.

I don’t know if this worked the same way in all public schools, but in ours, every P.E. quarter, we started out by seeing how long it took to run a mile, seeing how many push-ups and sit-ups we could do in a minute, then checking our BMI. This information was recorded, and then at the end of the quarter, we did it all again to see how we’d “improved”. Our P.E. teacher/coach never did anything with it; the information was sent off to the state as part of the governor’s “make our state healthy!” initiative.

(Because nothing says healthy like taking a bunch of kids whose bodies are already going through massive changes, and whose hormones are raging, and telling them they’re too fat or too thin, right?)

I absolutely despised this part of the quarter—what good is knowing how many push-ups and sit-ups we can do in a minute, especially when we never learned the proper technique to do either? And who really cares how long it takes us to run a mile?

What I didn’t hate about P.E. is that I had class with a very cute boy who I just so happened to have developed a crush on. Now, I was a little new to the “liking boys” phenomenon, but from what I could tell, they liked sporty girls.

Now, while I couldn’t run a mile in under ten minutes, and my BMI placed me firmly in the “overweight” category, I was not an unathletic gal. I’d played softball my whole life; my fast pitch was clocked at fifty miles an hour, my batting average nothing to sneeze at, and I could make a throw from centerfield to home plate without breaking a sweat.

Crunches? Piece of cake.

So when we were told to pair up, I managed to snag the Cute Boy as my partner, and got into position to start my sit-ups—me lying flat on my back with my arms folded over my chest like a mummy, and him holding my feet.

The coach started the timer, and we began.

Sit-ups were always much easier for me than push-ups, so I had been confident in my ability to wow the Cute Boy with my number of crunches.

And then I felt it.

A slight gurgling low in my belly, barely noticeable at first, but quickly growing. I kept crunching, willing it to go away, sure that if I ignored it, it would go away, because I was a good person, right? This one thing could go right for me, just once—

Pbfft.

I laid flat on my back after the last crunch, pulse pounding in my ears, cold sweat down my spine. I couldn’t tell what kind of fart that had been. Had Cute Boy heard it? Had everyone heard it? Had it been a loud, sloppy fart, or a silent, but deadly one?

Which would be worse?

I still had thirty seconds, give or take, left on the clock, so I decided to push through, praying he hadn’t heard—or smelt—anything, and that would the only gas I passed.

My stomach, naturally, had other ideas.

As soon as I curled up into the next sit-up, another fart pushed out, this one definitely both audible and smelly. My face flushed, my life flashed before my eyes, and I quickly fell back to the floor.

It was a lose-lose situation. If I did nothing, the coach would yell at me to keep going the last twenty seconds. If I kept going, I risked continuing to fart literally in the face of Cute Boy, effectively ruining the cred I’d managed to build up thus far.

There was no gracious way out of this.

Looking up at the bright gymnasium lights, I said goodbye to any chance I might have had with Cute Boy, and continued crunching.

My stomach continued to rebel on every sit-up, pushing out more and more of the loudest, stinkiest farts I’ve ever had the displeasure to dispel from my body as my insides churned with my leftover lunch, shame, and gas.

I avoided looking at Cute Boy’s face as much as I could, but I did catch a glimpse, once, right at the end. His nose wrinkled, his lip curled in disgust, and he’d turned his entire face away from me, trying to escape the targeted, full-on skunk-spray that was being blasted right at him.

I couldn’t say I blamed him.

After the longest minute of my life, the P.E. coach finally called time, and Cute Boy stood quickly, walking away before I could even climb to my feet. P.E. ended a week later, and we went into our separate extracurricular classes after that, so Cute Boy and I’s interaction went back to zero. And I learned a little something about eating lunch and doing sit-ups right after.

Stick to the lunch, leave the crunches out of it.

(It’s just safer that way for everyone.)