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December 11, 2003
I'll tumble 4 you
Lisa and I were walking through Best Buy when I spotted the 2nd season DVD of the Monkees! "Li Li!" I cried, "It's the Monkees!" Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. An older man stood smiling at me. Bastard wants me to move, I thought. What, am I blocking the Baywatch DVDs?
"Donna?" he said. The man looked slightly familiar and I figured it was an old colleague. "I don't know if you remember me, I'm your old Coach Opp!"
It was him! Just grayer and without the Freddie Mercury mustache. Who exactly is this man? Well, from 1987 through 1992 Coach Opp was alternately my Health (a.k.a. sex education) teacher and my shot put and discus coach. Oh, the secret crush I harbored for him! I remember during Track and Field practice, he would send the throwers to the weight room and have us lift for an hour every other day. (You should see my prom picture, I am the only girl sporting 24-inch pythons). The one day he told Lisa it was time for her to bench press. As she laid down on the bench, he straddled her chest, clapped his hands together and yelled, “ARE YOU READY TO WORK!" Lisa was so very embarrassed, yet I could tell she was also slightly enthralled. Me, I was jealous!
"Uh, I need to bench press too, uh, can you spot me Coach?"
"No, Donna; you already bench pressed today!"
To this day Lisa likes to throw this incident in my face. Thankfully she doesn't mention the time I lost control of the discus and it went flying across the field and through the wide spread legs of Coach Opp. Gosh, he was mad. I don't blame him now in retrospect. At any rate, I was completely flustered seeing him there in Best Buy and I could feel my face heat up. We reminisced over the old days. I mentioned how I remember when he had to leave class because his wife was in labor. He told me his son is now 16-years-old! My feelings for ole Opp remain the same. A decade and a half later, he still reduces me to a pile of jelly. Once we said goodbye and walked away, Lisa looked at me and said, "Donna! You are completely broken out in hives!" Red splotches covered my cheeks and neck. Some things never change.
