Now watch her crank that weezy wee

Fourth grade was a great year of personal growth for me. I played my first AAU basketball, I spent the entire year of "free time" in Ms. Tyra's 4A classroom sitting under tables playing "Fax Machine" or laughing at self-portraits we had drawn that August (Card Chronicle's was the best), I joined my first football team, I was taught how to fear the living hell out of sex so I would be deterred from ever having premarital sex ... I mean I took the Catholic educational system's Family Life ... and I finally broke my streak of getting strep throat every late fall or winter that had started in Kindergarten. Granted before that it was ear infections and before that it was birth. Regardless, it was finally time to move on in life and see what else there was to discover.

So at AAU my team lost in pool play when a kid on our team missed a lay-up that would have put us up for with 2 seconds to go when it balanced on the back of the rim. They had the possession arrow, received the ball, and had a kid bank in the longest buzzer beater to win a game I still have ever witnessed with my own eyes. So it goes.

While sitting under tables all year I more than likely developed some sort of social phobia. I mean, that is just weird. Granted someone was always sitting with me and we often played "Fax Machine" with two girls -- which was revolutionary in those days. To be fair "Fax Machine" simply involved writing notes back and forth from under the table to above the table that 100% consisted of things like "did you do Vocab?" and "did you watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers yesterday?"

Family Life truly was scarring. It was a horrific experience that involved too many pictures, diagrams, and other boys who knew way, way, way more than I did. Though teaching it to little kids did bring an amazing amount of humor to our and our teacher's lives. To this day I can't hear the word "cinnamon" without cringing/laughing ever again. Thanks Billy.

Football was great. How many fourth graders get to have their backs thrown out because their late 30s/early 40s dad-coach decided he wanted to teach you how to block like a real man. In touch football. He later tackled a 6th grader (6th grader in full pads, dad ... not) at full force to show us how to "hit". I promptly never played after sixth grade.

Moving on to new things meant giving up on things like strep throat. It visited me again briefly, and horribly, a few years ago but things just weren't the same. I prefer diseases to affect me a little lower these days.

Not like that. Gross.

In fourth grade I got my first sinus infection. Of course it turned into bronchitis. Which turned into pneumonia. All in all it was a blast. One month home from school. I only left the basement to use the bathroom and go to sleep. I got to play Tecmo Super Bowl everyday and demolished the guys doing duct work at our house every day at lunch. I learned how to swallow pills to avoid my mom trying to hide them in my ice cream. No amount of chocolate will ever remove that taste. Thanks Mom!

I followed fourth grade up with eight straight years of either sinus infection, bronchitis, or pneumonia. By the time I went to college my doctor just gave me bottles of my most common medications with the words "you know how and when to take these by now" just in case it happened again.

That year I moved, I got a flu shot, and that fall/winter I didn't get any sicker than "the common cold". I have since moved back home and didn't get sicker than "the common cold". I did get a flu shot.

At this point I do not even care if the two are completely unrelated. I love flu shots. I want to have their babies.

Next week I'll tell you about why I needed a Valtrex prescription in college. It is about as sexy as Golden Girls. Well, ignore Bea Arthur and you'll catch what I mean. That BA is a smokin' hottie.