Distant memory no. 2

Until eighth grade, I did gymnastics.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, I had this one coach, Dan, who would always shout motivational things at us like "MY GRANDMA COULD DO A BETTER DISMOUNT!" or "DON'T BE SUCH A PANSY!"

One early spring day, my mom was gardening out in front of our house. She was planting pansies. She mentioned to me that they would be okay if we had another frost before spring started in earnest, since, as far as flowers go, pansies are fairly durable. When she said that, I thought about Dan and smiled to myself. Now, I had ammo.

That night, when I went to gymastics practice, I just couldn't wait for Dan to use his signature line.

"DON'T BE SUCH A PANSY!" he yelled, as I struggled on pommel horse. He grinned smugly. You could tell he enjoyed little more than to taunt kids into pointing their toes and obtaining more height on their flares.

Ah ha! I thought.

"ACTUALLY, PANSIES ARE VERY HARDY FLOWERS," I retorted in my know-it-all pre-adolescent voice.

And to think that I was surprised when this didn't have the chilling effect I anticipated it would. [buries face in hands]