CrossFit Athletic Group

"Mr. Ron, will you please come down to my office?"

Those words rang through the school's PA system, as if it was everyone's business who was and wasn't going to have some good ol fashioned 'splaining to do.

Meanwhile in Room 201, a boy jolted up from his daily daydreaming, stuck his bubble gum under his desk, shoved his half-written love letter to Andrea all the way in the back by his pencil case, and looked around; the entire class was now staring at him.

"Dude, he's talking to you."

"Aaaawwwwwwwwww"

"You really did it now pal."

"Don't rat me out man! It was your idea!"

The faces behind the voices didn't register, nor did the teacher writing out a hall pass, his nightmares were coming to reality and, worst of all (he noticed out of the corner of his eye), Andrea was giggling with the rest of her cute friends.

Slowly the boy got up and began his death march to the front of the class to receive the teacher's hall pass and headed out, closing the door and the protection of his classroom behind him.

He didn't know where the principal's office was, but he knew that following the traces of guilt and anxiety left by previous delinquents in the hallway would lead him straight there like a little pig being led to that one part of the farm where no little piggies came back. And sure enough, just past the bathrooms, just past that locker he got shoved in months earlier, stood the huge doors and vast windows to the main office. He could see the secretary from the hallway; she shook her head and gestured him in with a Might As Well Just Get This Over With look on her face.

"Right this way honey," she said sympathetically, pointing behind her to a single wooden door. He slouched his head even more, walked behind the secretary's desk (resisting the sudden, unexplainable urge to push all the buttons on her computer), reached for the copper door handle and turned it.

For a brief instant the features of the room registered in his brain: a couch, a plant, a frame with words, no windows, a crucifix, but all that was washed away an instant later by the figure of the principal sitting forward in a 19th-century wooden chair with his feet straight, moustache scrunched up, glasses tipped down his nose and his arms crossed. No scale from the science classroom could measure the full gravity of the situation.

In front of the principal was a small coffee table rising, oh, three feet from the ground so the preschoolers can reach it, and a single photograph lying face-down.

Ohmygod, how did they catch me?

The principal tensed his lips and took an unnecessarily large inhale from his chest, nearly popping one of the buttons on his shirt.

"This picture was taken earlier this week," he said, "and I would like to ask you one question about it."

He reached down to flip it over, but before a finger touched the glossy backside the boy burst out into uncontrolled confession.

"TheytoldmetodoitIneverthoughtaCheetowouldactuallymakeitallthewayupmynosepleasedon'tcallmymom!"

The principal's expression did not change.

"What you do with Cheetos is your own business," he said, picking up the picture and hiding its contents in his chest. "No, this is a much more serious matter. And I am at my wit's end eith you. My question is..."

And he slammed the picture down on the desk, making the boy jump:

"You're a grown-ass man Mr. Ron, why the hell are you doing med ball sprints in a downpour??"

"I-it's the Champions Club, sir," stammered Mr. Ron. "We get to feel like kids there."

"Well," rebuked the principal, gathering himself, "well, you just kidded your way into a week's detention mister. You are dismissed."