Sorry to digress… When I was 13, I wanted to play football more than anything in the world, and I was 90 pounds. You needed to weigh-in at 100 to make the roster. So, I did nothing but eat bananas and peanut butter sandwiches. When the day of the weigh-in arrived, I checked myself on the scale at home. 102. I was pumped. Ready to go. I walked slowly to the car, so as not to expend any precious ounces on the way to judgement. We arrived, it was August, air conditioning was a luxury back in the day, and I was sweating profusely. Panic. I stood in line with all of those doughy teenagers easily tipping the scale in their favor and grew silent. My moment came. I pressed my feet hard into the pedestal of the ultimate measuring machine and let my entire body hang as heavy as possible. Hearing a couple of grunts and humm’s being uttered within the room about me I raised my head to see the enormous round dial peering down at me, with the guillotine-like needle quivering around 99.7, and my heart sank. A man approached me, a man bigger than the machine itself. He was to be my executioner, I knew it. My hard work, all the bananas, the peanut butter, driving my family crazy with this obsession of gaining weight had now arrived at the one moment I feared the most. Rejection. The man grabbed my arm, my knees buckled, a tear erupted in the corner of my eye, I opened my mouth to speak, and… nothing came out. He placed a football helmet in my hand, curled my arm around it and pushed it close to my chest and said, ” you have to wear a helmet if you want to be on this team!” And with that I looked up at the scale as I heard him shout, “102! Next!” I put on my helmet, went to the next line to fill out the papers, and immediately lost 8 pounds as a result of my heart beating 285 beats per minute. I didn’t care, my face froze in a clown-like grin that lasted the entire football season.
So, for anyone who lingered long enough to read the above, I know the question that started this memory of mine might not be scientifically answered, but, isn’t that what fluther is all about?
A question is an opportunity. And also, don’t we all love bananas and peanut butter?