#6. Day X (Friday, October 5, 2001)
What was your best day…of just having a fun time?
Today was Day X. And X turned out to be pretty good.
At the start of the year, our sixth-grade teacher Mr. Tonelli (or Mr. T, as we had called him1, #116) had split us into these four teams with nonsensical names (my team Frezly, along with Quantop, Bogoto, and Dardon) for a year-long “Survivor Challenge” – where the groups would compete in tasks for points. In the first few weeks we had done some Friday afternoon challenges: stuff like “hold a giant textbook with one hand reaching out for as long as possible”2, or “put as many quarters as you can on your elbow, then try to catch them all with your same hand” (harder than it looks).
But this Friday was going to be a full day devoted to these challenges. So Mr. T called it Day X.
First up was Simon Says. A pretty simple game, you would think. But as it wore on, Mr. T started doing his trademark thing: “Simon says put your hands on your shoulders. Simon says put your hands on your head. Simon says put your hands on your shoulders. Simon says put your hands on your head,” really, really, really fast. Until, he’d eventually go: “Put your hands on your shoulders/head,” and half the people would be eliminated. Well, after a couple of rounds of that, I somehow emerged as the winner – breaking the points tie and giving Frezly the lead.
Second was Pauper Architecture. Each team was given a pack of straws and paper-clips and told to build the highest possible structure they could with them. Well, I felt I had done my part for the team already, so I kind of just chilled there while the rest of my team was hard at work trying – and failing, over and over – to get some kind of stable structure going. For that entire hour, the other teams were well ahead us. But just as Mr. T began inspecting the first team’s structure, all of the straw and paper clip pieces on our side just miraculously came together all of a sudden…and we now had the tallest structure.
Did we complete our structure in time? Controversy, controversy. A big argument followed. But in the end it was decided that we were indeed the winners, furthering our lead.
Next was an afternoon K’NEX3 challenge: where any team that couldn’t build some assigned complex machine within the afternoon would lose a large chunk of points. We were assigned a tractor. And after an extremely nerve-wracking hour and a half, we completed our task (as did all the other teams). Fun times.
So with Day X complete, Frezly was now far ahead in the challenge.4 The whole day went as well as it possibly could have.
But it wasn’t done. We still had a one-hour gym period left. And for that we played the greatest gym class game ever – Strategy. Basically, dodgeball, but the goal was to knock down all four of the other team’s bowling pins (that were spaced apart at the back of their end). For this game, after a tight back-and-forth, we were each down to one pin. Then I tossed a ball (probably very lightly), one of the girls tried to catch it, she dropped it, and it hit the pin and we won. Holy shit. I just won us the game!
But no, that’s not the end of the story yet.
After school that day, I’m at home doing my Friday binge video game playing. I’m in the second world in Spyro: Year of the Dragon (#72); I go through this cool new level called Icy Peak5; then I go to Sgt. Byrd’s Lair – the level where you play as Spyro’s torpedo-shooting penguin buddy. While I’m there, my dad comes home and tells me that Brad and his family (#63) are coming over for Thanksgiving weekend.
At first, I’m like, why? I don’t want them to come; I want to keep playing Spyro. But as the night goes on, and I move on a bit further in Spyro and also make some good progress in my Toy Story 2 (#45) game, I feel greater and greater anticipation.6
Finally, Brad, his little sister, and his parents arrive at midnight.
The long weekend with them is awesome in every way. It’s a constant flip-flop of Brad and I playing video games at home, and our parents taking us out to visit all the famous Ottawa landmarks. We go to all the usual spots: the Parliament, the Museum of Civilization (#98, #15), etc. – while at the same time Brad and I are advancing all the way to the final bosses in his Pokemon Gold Gameboy game. And the entire time, that feeling of total excitement from traveling around in a big group (#63) hits me hard.
On Sunday night, Brad has a little accident.
We’re playing Spyro and Brad is watching me as I go through this new sub-portal challenge in the Enchanted Towers that requires Spyro to do all these skateboard tricks to get an egg. I’m focused on the TV screen trying to do a particularly hard trick called the 900, when suddenly behind me I hear a lot of “Oh no!”s and “What’s going on?”s (in Chinese) and a lot of other commotion from the adults. It takes me a while to turn back to see what this is all about. Brad is gone.
And it turns out Brad, almost ten years old at the time, while so engrossed in watching me play Spyro, just crapped his pants in the middle of the living room.
Call me immature, but that’s the moment that sealed Day X for me.
- Mr. T was the greatest teacher I ever had. He treated us all like adults; the way he taught us had this intuitive, fundamentals-based quality that you don’t see much in elementary/middle school; and he was way cooler than any teacher had a right to be.
- Man, those were the days. Can’t imagine something like that flying in elementary schools today.
- K’NEX is basically Lego, except you can build actually functioning machines with it.
- By the end of the year, Bogoto won the Survivor Challenge (surpassing us), and I don’t recall what their prize even was…but all that really mattered here was that pure thrill of competing (and winning).
- For some messed-up reason, this hour I was going through this level feels like my best memory of this entire day. Probably because it was at the point where I was super-happy with the day so far, but still hadn’t received the news that would make this day even better…
- Adding to the excitement, Roy Halladay (playing for the Jays, and before he was good) almost gets a no-hitter in the first end of a doubleheader…both ends of which the Jays win.