At my school, they did let people stay in once in a while - you know, when the freezing fog was so thick even the PE teachers couldn’t find the playing fields, that sort of thing. That was when they let us stay in the halls and play ping-pong. It was the time of my one and only sporting triumph.
Some people in this thread know what I look like, and realise I’m not what you might call athletic. What they probably don’t realise is that, twenty-five years ago, I was a lot less athletic than I am now. My PE classes were, for me, an exercise in trying to look inconspicuous, because, if I ever got noticed, Bad Things would happen. (For instance, I’m the only person in the history of the school to break an arm [my own] during a piggy-back race.) I could be relied on to score worst and finish last in, well, just about everything.
But when it came to ping-pong - well, I have reasonably good reflexes, and good eyesight, so I didn’t start out quite as heavily disadvantaged in that particular sport. Nowhere near the top, of course, and not strange enough to be entertaining (we had one guy who could put so much topspin on the ball, it would bounce backwards when it landed. On a good day, he could get his serve to return itself.), but not absolute crap. And, of course, if you practice something, you get better at it…
So, one day in 1980 (this was before the scrotum incident, about which the less said the better), I was lined up for my ritual humiliation… I start off, manage to hit the ball over the net, not bad going for me… opponent returns it, I hit it back, win the point… win the next couple as well… in fact, do a quite creditable job of holding my serve… then, win a couple of points off his serve…
Before I know it, I’m actually ahead on points. And, as the game continues, I keep on being ahead. Somehow, it dawns on me, I’m winning…
And I look over the net, and behind my opponent’s National Health specs, I can see the same dawning realization in his eyes…
The score reaches 18-12! Tradition demands I hum a few bars of a certain overture at this point… My serve. Low whimperings are coming from the other side of the net, as we reach 19-12… 19-13… 20-13… the whimperings are now audible pleadings, a prayer to the blind and capricious gods of PE. (Ha! I think, They don’t listen, my friend! They never listen! Who knows this better than I?) I serve. To and fro goes the ball, over the net again and again… my opponent is weakening, he lunges from side to side with increasing desperation as my play forces him slowly out of position… finally, the moment comes! The ball hurtles past my opponent’s bat, to clatter on the floor behind him! For the first time ever, victory is mine!
And, in the next moment, every head in the hall turns, as my opponent, quite literally, crumples to the floor, with a howl of anguish, despair and humiliation torn from the roots of his very soul…
Ah. PE. Wonderful stuff, teaches you teamwork, and respect for a worthy opponent, and the importance of Playing the Game. And if you believe that, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.