When I was a junior, I had to take a required gym class called "Individual Sports." We did fun things like tennis, gymnastics, badminton, ping pong, and so on. One of my favorites was wrestling. Like I said, I was a big guy, and there was only one other kid in my weight class. Unfortunately, Frank happened to be on the wrestling team, whilst I was merely an amateur athlete -- the most wrestling experience I had was playing out Big Time Wrestling as my brother and I watched it on TV. I liked to be Pampero Firpo and my brother rather enjoyed being The Sheik. As fun as this was, it wasn't anything like the kind of wrestling we were doing in gym class.
Call it divine providence, but for some miraculous reason, I beat Frank every time I wrestled him. I don't know how. I thought he was a better wrestler than I, but somehow I always managed to get him pinned.
Most of the weight classes contained many students, but Frank and I just kept wrestling each other. While the rest of the class had elimination rounds (a funny word, if you think about it), Frank and I still just wrestled each other.
On the last day of the wrestling unit, the coach announced the winners for each weight category. The lightweight winner was a guy named Larry. He was a little shrimp, but strong and sinewy and quick as lightning. He was on the varsity wrestling team.
On this particular day, I wasn't feeling all that well, intestinally speaking. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for my ironclad rule of never visiting the school's bathrooms, I'd have made the atomic drop several hours before gym class.
Most of the weight classes were having their final rounds. I felt I was off the hook, though, because my weight class championship had been decided very early on and Frank and I weren't scheduled to wrestle. I suited up like usual -- gym sorts, t-shirt, white socks, tennis shoes -- but I was fully prepared to just be a bystander that day.
As class went on, I started noticing a growing sensation of urgency. There were some internal gurgling sounds, but nothing that outsiders could hear. Still, if I just sat quietly, I was sure that I could wait it out and deposit my load on my home turf.
The final matches went well and everything was copasetic. The bell was going to ring in about five minutes, and then I would be home free -- free to make a mad dash to the porcelain receptor located at home. And then, all of a sudden, to my horror, I heard my name being barked out by Coach Wagner in his very distinctive voice, sort of like a drill sergeant with a mouth full of gravy. "Front and center!"
The color drained from my face. What was this? Just when I thought I was home free, I was being ordered into the ring.
As it turned out, the championships had all been decided, but since there were still a few minutes to kill Coach Wagner had thought that it would be funny, in his own perverse way, to have the heavyweight champ wrestle the lightweight champ, Larry. I couldn't believe it. What was I supposed to do? Tell the coach I had to go potty?
So I assumed my place in the ring of valor. I squeezed my cheeks together and hoped for the best.
Larry was a great wrestler. As I said, he was quick and strong. Under normal circumstances, I probably could have taken him down. But the world will never know, because as we locked grips, Larry darted for my legs. He grabbed my feet and I went down. Lightning Larry quickly sprang to his feet and jumped on my back as his arm went around the front of my face.
Get this picture in your mind: I am on my knees. Larry is on my back, gripping onto my face. And then it happens. The shot heard ‘round the gym. I lost pressure with the force of a New York City fire hose and my shorts were not a sufficient barrier to keep the flow from splattering onto the mat. Not only were brown droplets hurling through the atmosphere, but a toxic plume of noxious gasses were being emitted from my southern regions. And if that weren't enough, Larry, grabbing my face, gave me a bloody nose. Simultaneous with the brown ooze was a bright red geyser emitting from my nasal cavity, all of this layered in a green fog of sulpheric gasses. It was enough to make a seasoned septic tank pump truck driver's eyes water.
The gym teacher noticed the crimson blood on my face and sent me to the showers. As I was running to the locker room, the full force of Hurricane Stinko hit him square in the face. He let out a yell and said in a loud voice, "Whew! Somebody scared the sh** out of somebody!" It was brainiac statements like that that proved he was academically qualified for gym class and not English, math, or science. Of course, while all this was happening, the entire gym class was sitting on the bleachers just watching and smelling.
The incredible odor followed me down the stairs and into the locker room. I knew it was only a matter of minutes until the rest of the class would join me in the showers; and considering that my posterior looked like I had dipped it into a vat of melted milk chocolate, that would have been disaster. I ran into the shower, took off all my clothes and actually threw them away, and gave myself a quick scrub, being thankful for the awesome water pressure in the school showers when only one of them was in use. I assumed my street clothes commando-style and bolted out of the locker room before anyone else could get there.
To my complete and utter amazement, I survived this embarrassing episode relatively unscathed. I guess it all happened so fast, nobody was aware of the grisly details of what had taken place in my pants. Beyond the smell, nobody must have figured out what was going on; and we all know he who smelt it, dealt it. Although I have often wondered what the janitor thought as he was cleaning up that night.