Back in Junior High School, or “Intermediate” as it is known in the parts where I’m from, I signed up for every imaginable sport. Now I know that those of you who know me in this phase of my life are leaning back in your chairs, patting your stomachs and cackling in disbelief (I know for sure some of you indeed cackle when you call “bullshit”), but there was a time in my youth when my butt lined the bench of every B-Team sport to play in the gym of the mighty, mighty CLIS Eagles and in gyms throughout the greater Clear Creek Independent School District.

Before I even got to Jr. High there was ballet, swim team, drill team, cheerleading (I still just ooze pep and sincerity, right? You haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed my bubble letter writing) and gymnastics. At CLIS there was volleyball, basketball and track; the fifty meter hurdles being the only event of which I showed any sort of natural aptitude. After high school I dabbled in riding horses and I literally had a five minute affair with tennis, a particularly embarrassing moment in which I joined a club, bought four or five tennis skirts, a pair of K-Swiss shoes and the panties that you can stuff your extra balls in (get your head out of the gutter), and I signed myself up for a private lesson. My dad had told me earlier in the month that all well-bred young ladies should play tennis. Which was particularly funny since I’m certainly not very well-bred, among other things. Anyway, I drove myself to my inaugural lesson all decked out in Le Coq Sportif fare, tossing my pony tail as I walked into the office of the club like an annoying, totally entitled bourgeois peacock.

“I’m here for my lesson!” I told the lady at the front desk.