Every so often I will slide a Hokie Passport through a CBORD card scanner, see a green light and say Thank you, or a red light which I follow with Thank you.
We run a tight shop.
A tight shop with no air conditioning. Each summer day I emerge from the doors feeling as though I’ve mowed a lawn and washed the clippings off with urine.
To my left, an industrial box fan sits stoic next to two sets of open double doors.
The propeller belt rolls endlessly over a central red pupil, the iris translucent as the maniacal blades twirl a dark haze. I half expect the eye to glow orange, shooting forth a Mario fire ball, bouncing along shimmering tiles to meet my face with a splat.
Fans! yells a girl no older than five.
Don’t go near it, missy. You will surely melt. And I’ll have to use that weird body fluid powder to sweep you up. I will hand the biohazard bag to your father who will return home where his wife will see the red bag from afar and say Oh, you went shopping! to which he’ll sadly reply No, this is your daughter.
Truly, my face already feels caked in lava. What I think is mop sweat could easily be skin departing my forehead. The 90-degree air drenched in humidity is tumbling, punching the fan's thin metal shell (and it’s wearing brass knuckles) before oozing forth. It’s a brawl. A monster truck rally in nine cubic feet.
I’ll endure this incessant rattle for four hours.
But today it will only enhance my focus. I’ll perceive it as white noise, Enya playing softly in a hyperbaric chamber. Blissful, really.
And to what (or whom) do I owe this meditative perspective?
Cheerleaders.
Hundreds of cheerleaders.
And let me immediately differentiate between the two species. There are those that soar through the air like catapulted Slinkys, provoking Ooos! from a predominantly obese, flightless audience. Then there are those that sit on bleachers, the vibrations of their not-quite-in-synch step stomping harassing my taint. My taint did not want this. Nor did I wish to be given a spelling test of my school’s acronym many times over.
Ess go! Ess go!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldpost/2884299149/Last week, the gyms hosted the latter: the UCA (Utter Cochlea Annihilation) Cheer Camp.
A sea of 12 to 17-year-old girls in matching clothes (or lack thereof) whose collective scream sounded like a colossal banshee wail born of Lucifer’s asshole.
Combined with the repetitive playing of Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” on a way-too-loud sound system, I’m amazed I didn’t have an aneurysm. Parents need to understand they are emptying their pockets to have their precious ponytails jerk their hips like a Viper’s pistons to the steel drum narration of a sex act involving misdirected man seed and sheet capes.
Maybe Clark Kent was into jailbait, I don’t know.
The thirty-five paces between me and the aforementioned box fan are littered with sequins, ghosts of jazz hands past. Jewels that fell from teen cheeks, arms and booty shorts declaring pom pom (one pom per bun). I didn’t view them so much as walking hazards. Rather, I saw them as mines waiting to detonate, claiming not limbs but confidence.
Boom! You are too fat.
Boom! Your toe-touch sucks.
For what are the benefits of such an experience?
Consider a basketball camp. Kids play upwards of 5 games a day. They are crushing their lungs, pumping their legs full of lactic acid, and facing faster, stronger, taller, better opponents. Their strength, endurance and skill increase as a result.
On the other hand, the cheerleaders could, for the most part, be seen sitting Indian style, shattering eardrums with support for the handful of those performing a routine; a routine that did not particularly challenge the human physique beyond maybe a double jump where legs had to show some ounce of resiliency.
Several herds did perform push-ups randomly, although they were absolutely pitiful, like they were plagued with osteoporosis. An entirely contradictory show of might.
Oh, and they also ran unprovoked pseudo-sprints through the hallways like wayward gazelles, yelping about all things inconsequential.
So, the physical gains are sparse. But how about wisdom imparted?
Ballers can dig in to their coaches’ knowledge, direct or abstract. There are the fundamentals: how can I improve the rotation on my jumper, read a pick-and-roll, better close out a perimeter threat?
And then the game extends into our social reality: reach-around defense my work’s procrastination, flopping a charge my white lie excuses, the backboard my wingman at the bar (I’m no Scottie Pippen; I always go home alone).
Cheerleaders have to refine some basics, too. You know, like how to make toes more pointy and spirit fingers more…spirity.
And obviously a side hurdler jump is akin to, I don’t know, a really good high five with a friend. And a hair ribbon is, say, a colorful Post-it.
Hmm.
But wait. I’ve got it. It’s all about camaraderie, right? Those Kumbaya moments during meals or before bed when BFFFF’s are made. And while I imagine some cheerleaders found pals, I couldn’t help but notice the competition extended beyond the pyramids.
There are large viewing windows overlooking the gymnastics room. The lights within were off, and the glass afforded a significant reflection. So often I watched girls stroll by, their heads craned to the side, hands atop their skull, obsessively sculpting their locks and tuning their bows like a fucking present was inside. They were inevitably on their way to the restroom, inside which I wouldn’t doubt they pulled mascara from their socks and touched up their soulless eyes.
Back in the gym: 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Step counts like an adaptation of robotic binary.
The whole idea seems conflicting. The camp encourages impressionable minds to unite! Bring apathetic fans to their feet with energy, exponential energy! Yet their eyes are also askance, darting from girl to girl.
Would I be cuter with shorter hair?
Glad I don't have her gut.
My ass is so flat. I can't "Crank That" quite like Christina.
I’d like to imagine summer experiences at that age would send youth home enlightened and optimistic, not straight to a full-length mirror. For something that ostensibly teaches the power of uniformity, there sure seems to be a hierarchy of ego and self-deprecation.
It’s just veiled by jet engine shrieks.
I mean, a campus cop approached me one evening concernedly and asked What is going on in there? We heard screams across the Drillfield.
The hobby literally convinces passersby that people are being murdered.
But as he walked – well, waddled – away, his rotund trunk was unavoidable.
Christina ain’t got shit on the fuzz.
No comments:
Post a Comment