Do you ever get those flashbacks of elementary school when you're driving or sitting on the toilet? Of course you do, we all do. I dealt with my fair share of bullying from my peers, but oddly enough I had to deal with it from my teachers as well. Strange as that my be, I was just a kid who was not liked. But I stood up for myself once, and this is that story, it's just kinda lame.
But my flashback came to me while I was remembering a commercial, I don't know what it was about, candy or something, but a man was dressed up like a tin robot. And I get to thinking, the robot is the coolest dance move and I have never been able to really get the mechanics of it down. The herky jerky robotic movements of the arms, head, and legs were beyond my comprehension. And then I remember elementary school gym class where we learned the important cardiovascular benefits of the "Electric Slide" and "Square Dancing" but somewhere in between these very important party moves and trying to earn some kind of Presidential merit badge by doing 5 pull ups and running a mile without puking, we had to do the robot.
Maybe if I had a lesson or two before throwing me into the arena I could have really shown my gym teacher that I wasn't the loser she told me I was, doesn't mean that I can work the robot with the best of them. I knew I could do the robot, what could be so hard about it right? Well in true gym teacher fashion (code here for something-only-a-mega-bitch-would-do) she gets us all to form a line along the edge of some nasty blue plastic mat and one by one we were to walk like a robot along this cheap runway in front of everyone!
Fuck the robot!
My turn comes up and I'm at the edge of the mat, about to parade my poor excuse for a robot in front of all the kids who egged my parents house and make a complete ass out of myself. "Fuck it" I think, and I just walked calmly and cooly down the mat, as a normal person.
"Taylor! you didn't walk like a robot, the exercise is to walk like a robot" I'm sure this was followed by some lame threat like I won't get a star for today or some bullshit like that.
"I did," I said
The woman started getting angry with me, you could see the look in her eyes, you know the look only gym teachers have. Crazy, and pissed about teaching a bunch of kids how to dodge a big plastic red balls and dance in a square formation.
"That was not a robot, you just walked down the mat, I told you to walk like a robot!"
By that point I didn't care anymore, when my 3rd grade teacher wasn't singling me out as demon spawn, my music teacher was blaming me for the disruptions the boys made (now how fair is that?), my gym teacher was making me walk like a god damn robot.
So I sighed, and shrugged and said "I'm just really advanced."
and walked to the end of the line.
