Revenge of the Pickle

He stood in the corner of the weight room. The class was for high school seniors and somehow he, a junior, finagled his way in. Therefore he was below contempt and ignored. Well almost ignored because for some reason he had chosen to wear a dark green sweat suit, which caused most of the student to refer to him as the pickle behind his back.

In his hands he grasped a large brown leather medicine ball. But being an island in a sea of seniors there was no one willing to share the medicine ball experience. As his gaze traveled around the room he noticed me, off in a corner, warming up by painfully stretching various underused muscles.

He approached me and quietly asked if I would throw the medicine ball with him. I am sure my peers expected me to ignore the intruder but frankly I did not care what my so-called peers thought. I was a rather solitary soul myself and was not worried about my popularity meter. So we began tossing the ball about.

Right out of the gate he began telling me how great the Philadelphia Flyers were. Being a dyed in the wool baseball fan I had no idea who the Flyers were. But being Los Angeles born and bred I was not about to surrender bragging rights. So I informed him that I am sure that our hockey team was much better than the Flyers. Much to my chagrin I later found out that the Flyers were the most recent winners of the Stanley Cup and that the Kings were one of the worst teams in hockey.

This spirited debate led to us working out together on a regular basis. As the semester progressed he became more accepted by the other seniors who on occasion actually lowered themselves to greeting. However, neither our developing friendship nor the reluctant acceptance of his presence by the other seniors precluded us from playing a small senior prank on him.

On the Friday before Memorial day weekend I convinced him to run laps around the football field. While we went out the west door the rest of the class went out the east door. As soon as he hit the track someone turned on the sprinklers and soaked him to the skin. We all had a good laugh and he was a surprisingly good sport about the whole affair.

Until the following Tuesday that is, you see my Junior friend was the only student with perfect attendance in the class. Perfect attendance was defined by not only being present but participating in the days activities.

With this in mind we returned to the locker room that morning to change for class and one particular locker had a rather foul odor emitting from it. It was his. He had left his pickle green sweat suit in his locker over the long holiday weekend and mildew had begun the reproductive process.

In order to preserve his perfect record my friend insisted he would dress for class. Which is about when our teacher came into the room, searching for the source of the odor. He informed our stubborn Junior that his record would remain perfect and he did not have to dress for class. But no, that was not good enough for my new friend. He insisted that the record would only count if he dressed and participated in that day's class. Which he did, much to the dismay of the seniors who had to complete their fitness exam with him in the weight room.

Some say revenge is a dish best serve cold, in this case it was a dish served damp and mildewy.