Previously on “Too Disgusting to Contemplate, Too Compelling to Ignore”: Dirk’s gym teacher was a dick. And now the epic conclusion…

I knew I was stuck. My books were in my gym locker, because the coach refused to let me do homework or read while I was sitting on the bleachers, and I would need them for the next period. As all the other guys were laughing at me and heading to the locker room, my mind started racing through my options.

I could leave my books in my locker and go to my next class without them. Or I could wait until the next gym class started, then sneak into the locker room, retrieve them and be late for my next class. Or I could go and get them and go to my next class.

I opted for the latter. Showing fear and intimidation would only make things worse.

So I marched into the locker room to retrieve my books. As I was shutting my locker, one of the football players, a big guy who had actually been decent to me over the years, shook his head and said, “You better just do what the coach says and get it over with. He’ll just go harder on you if you don’t.”

I just looked at him and started out of the locker room. I almost made it to the door, when the coach stepped out of his office and blocked my path. “Where do you think you are going, Mancuso?”

“To my next class, Coach.”

He poked one of his chubby sausage fingers into my chest. “No, you’re not. I told you, you’re taking a shower while everybody watches!”

“Well, I don’t have a towel, Coach,” I replied, thinking that would save my nancy boy ass.

He stared at me for a few seconds, then bellowed, “I’m going to get a towel and you better be naked when I get back, because if you aren’t, I will personally strip you down and throw you in that shower.” And with that, he stormed off, calling back, “You have one minute, Mancuso!”

I stood there, frozen, every guy looking at me. A few told me I better do what he said. I could say it was me taking a stand that got my feet started, but in all honesty it was the fear of what he would do to me when he came back and found me there fully clothed. I hurried off to my next class, where within minutes I was summoned to the Dean’s office.

The Dean was a take no prisoners type, and wasn’t interested in any reason I might have for not obeying the coach regardless of what transpired.

“What are you going to do in the military, Dirk?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

“I’m not joining the military,” I answered honestly.

He sighed. “Alright…what are you going to do when you get married?”

“I’m not sure I will get married, but if I do, I’m sure I won’t shower with 75 underage boys,” I smiled. “That would be illegal, Sir.”

Seeing that he was getting nowhere with me, he decided to call my mother at work.

Big mistake.

The woman who invented the Whistler wasn’t about to take any shit from, in her words, (which I could hear from the receiver he was holding about 6 inches from his ear) “some fucking pinhead who thinks I haven’t got anything better to do than listen about some goddamn crybaby coach when I send my kid to that hellhole to get an education, not bounce a fucking ball, capeesh?”

After appeasing the angry blue collar goddess, the dean hung up and made it clear that he realized that my attitude was a by-product of my less than sterling upbringing and sentenced me to what was the first of many lengthy after-school detentions I would serve over the next two and half years for failing to follow policy and obey the coach.