I Throw Like a Girl

I'm a bitch.  I don't like it if other people call me this unless we are acknowledging it together and laughing about it as I often do with my friend 'Stacey'.  However, this whole bitch business started waaaayyyy back in the day.

Like in Grades 1 through 6 (and beyond) where some exercise or another prompted the teacher to make everyone take turns reading out loud to the class.  I read like a motherfucker and always have.  I read fast, I can spell, have spectacular pronunciation and enunciate like nobodies business.  Since I was 6.  I'm not making this up.  Now other kids may have lucked out more in the athletics department, common sense or even looks but when I was 6? Or any age since then?  I lack all patience for those who can't read well.  So as a little bitchy elementary student, when those kids who could kick my ass on a volleyball court, stuttered and stumbled over their assigned reading? It was not beneath me to sigh loudly or glare or make fun of them (behind their back like all good bitches do) afterwards.

Now as a mature woman; a kind woman; an empathetic woman, I would never do such a thing.

Well, never may be a bit of a stretch. 

I had training, again, last night and it was decided we would take turns reading sections of the manual out loud.  It was not pretty.  And because I would choke and be just as uncomfortable if someone asked me to skate as part of anything anytime? I  can empathize because I skate like a two year old.  Legs stiff and straight, arms out.  It's not pretty.  And it makes me self-conscious.  Now some of these people who may be able to skate like Nancy Kerrigan before her knee was bashed in, or maybe sing like Susan Boyle or whatever that chick's name is from Britain's Got Talent, cannot read out loud.  Not well, anyway.  Do you know how tortuous it is to listen to someone read out loud badly?  Do you know how tortuous it must be for said person to realize they suck at this but are being forced to do it anyway?  It would be like the time I had to fill in during a Slo-Pitch game for my husband's team.  I literally wanted to puke but more than that?  I wanted the game to be over.  I am the definition of "throws like a girl".  I wanted off the field and safely back in my lawn chair with a drink in my hand. 

So here's what I think:  After one is finished with, at the very least, elementary school, where it makes some sense for the reading out loud business, no one, who is not comfortable with it, should ever have to do that again.

And in reference to my inherent bitchiness, at the very least, even if you can't pronounce words like 'innovative' or what have you, you should at all costs, be able to pronounce the name of the company you are now working for.  It's spelled phonetically (which means you can sound it out and be exactly right).  That's all I'm saying.

One more thing (you knew I couldn't leave it there, right?):  adults being trained by reading aloud to one another is, in my mind, a bit of an issue in and of itself but that's where I'll leave it for today.

I've learned my lesson...for the most part. ;)