It seemed like a good idea at the time. The age: Middle School. The place: Alamitos Intermediate. While in PE class, I thought it would be a good idea to tie my shoes together for fun. That means of course tying the laces of the left pair of the shoe with the laces of the right pair. Not sure why. A few minutes after I did so, the teacher told the entire class we had to run a lap around the block. She also said “If somebody does not run, everybody will run two laps instead”, as an obvious scare tactic. Much good classroom management. Frantic and scared at the time, I proceeded to of course run the entire lap with my shoes tied together. And when I finished, the teacher just looked at me, and asked “Did someone do this to you?!, thinking I was being bullied. Unfortunately, the truth was even more ridiculous. I did it to myself, and I told her accordingly. Not sure if she believed me, but she made the right decision to let it go at that very moment. Needless to say, it was a very painful run, and yet it taught me a critical thing in life: avoid experimentation at inconvenient times. Not sure what made me initially do what I did. Like a hamster running around in circles, I believed I was just bored.
Of course, this reminds me of another time in kindergarten at Pyles elementary, when two girls were chasing me around the playground. Believing in the idea of cooties and deadly afraid of females at the time, I proceeded to lay down on the ground. Unfortunately, I accidentally fell asleep in the process. The school thought I had fainted, and took me to the nurse, where she thought I had fainted as well. An ambulance arrived at the school, I woke up in the hospital for some reason, and when I got up I saw my dad and quickly said “Let’s go home!”. Needless to say, it was a very awkward and strange moment in my life, but of course reminded me of the need to make smart decisions in life. That antidote of “laying down” to avoid females chasing me wasn’t the right solution at the time, and yet I never had to really deal with the problem again, of women chasing me around.
