I could never do a pull-up in elementary school. This meant I could never get the Presidential Fitness Award, because in order to get that, you had to do at least one pull-up (if you were a girl. Boys had to do more than one. Boys are way impressive).

Girls who couldn’t do a pull-up had to settle for the flexed-arm hang, which involved a gym teacher hoisting you up over a metal bar as if you were doing your own pull-up, simulating the experience for you to remind you of how unsatisfactory you are on your own. Then you just hung there with your arms “flexed” until they felt like they were about to fall off, at which point you let go and plummeted towards doom. To make things worse, the gym teacher would be counting out loud from all the way down on the ground, so that you knew exactly at which point you had earned the stupid, lesser, no-good National Fitness Award and could finally let go. My arms always started shaking well before this point, but I refused to quit. I’d end up earning the second-rate, Dan Quayle version of the esteemed George H. W. Bush honor. “She’s kind of a fighter, that Annie Barrett,” the gym teacher would say when we all left to change. I’m sure he said that. He had to.

So many things about the flexed-arm hang were uncomforable, the most obvious one being that another person had to lift you above the bar — all of you — because you couldn’t lift all of yourself by yourself. That’s gross. I dreaded the lift, not just because of the shame game, but because why should a gym teacher get to grasp a little kid like that? Looking back, I’m surrpsied no one ever yelled “bad touch!” during the lifts. I should have, just to see the looks on people’s faces. But I wasn’t that edgy yet. It would have been out of character for the Young AB to make any sort of outburst.

The shame I felt during the lift itself was astronomical. (What a lame word, astronomical. Do I mean to suggest the shame was from outer space? No.) The gym teacher had to undeservedly bear the brunt of my excessive existence — the random long limbs I couldn’t muster up the strength to deal with by myself. And my weight wasn’t even excessive. I was skinny! I realize today that this was never fair. I was too tall. There’s no way an 11-year-old girl who was my height could have lifted herself up without some serious weight training or ‘roid use on the side. (And you know how I feel about the ‘roids. I feel weird even accepting an immunity or protein booster from the smoothie place. Seeing as my diet consists mainly of pad thai and cookies, I should probably get over this for the sake of “health”.)

But that’s not what I told myself back then. The entire time I hung up there over the bar, flailing, I imagined a voice informing me what a disgusting slob with no upper body strength I was. I’d also be wondering why I bothered to break a sweat during the mile run.

This should not have happened! I’m telling you, gym class in Illinois public schools was evil. I’m sure everyone in every state had to take gym, but Illinois people have to take it for an HOUR each day,all throughout high schoo l. I could probably write an entire book based on traumatic gym-class episodes from the Land of Lincoln. Okay, great! Nobody steal my idea.

So when I’m trying to fall asleep, I often lament about the blue Presidential Fitness patch, or what I call “the one that got away.” I think of those little feisty girls who could do pull-ups, and I hate them all over again. When we got to high school, I’d kick their asses in all areas, including obvious ones such as sports but also others like intelligence, metabolism, stealth while ditching class to drive to Applebee’s, and general coolness. But in fifth grade, they were still the stars. They could lift their wiry bodies above a metal bar. It was awesome.

To better convey how I feel about forcing little girls to attempt pull-ups, here’s a homemade animated graphic (Huh? Annie can do that? YES.) of Madonna flipping the bird to the camera during a special-edition cut of her video for “Sorry.” Apparently the kiddies at home would have been too tormented by Madonna’s obscene, shriveled-up middle finger, so they cut the gesture out for the official release. A good move, if only because she knew the original cut would leak and keep people talking about her. Madonna is really funny. I often realize I’m simply glad she exists.