VARSITY BLUES
Today’s contributor falls victim to a sprinkler system’s plan to derail her love life.
Back in high school, I was a cheerleader, dating one of the football players. As the season started to wind down, there were only three games left to brave the cold and cheer on my boyfriend in my skimpy uniform. The school I went to wasn’t that nice—our football field was crappy and the track we cheered on was pretty much gravel. But we were damn good at football and everyone in town was there, including his parents, who hated me. But I was slowly trying to win them over.
I was a flyer, so during the second quarter I went up for a stunt. One of the girls that was supposed to catch me slipped on the gravel and lost her footing. I obviously wasn’t caught very well, since she slipped, but managed to catch my fall. I stumbled back off of the track onto the field and caught myself with my hands. When I stood up and tried to move my foot, I couldn’t—it had fallen down into a hole and my shoe was stuck to something. When I gave it a tug, I heard everyone (the football players, the cheerleading team, and the people in the stands) scream.
All of the sudden, I realized that it was raining — but it wasn’t raining. I had set off the sprinklers and it was freezing! I had to take my shoe off to get out of the hole and, sure enough, the game was canceled because the sprinklers wouldn’t stop spraying. Ultimately, we won the rematch, but my little incident didn’t help me win over his parents.
