Free Primary School Confidential by Woog

eating really disgusting food that came in packages. Food like Deb mashed potato and sliced Spam that was warmed up in a dodgy-looking pan. Is it any wonder that I abhor camping to this day?
    As if the food wasn’t bad enough, there were the physical activities designed to test our endurance and strength and to promote teamwork. Naturally, it was one of these activities that saw my self-esteem plummet, my social standing collapse and my humiliation levels rise to heights never seen before.
    It all began with this bastard fucking obstacle course that we had to complete. And, oh yes, there was mud and a light sprinkle of rain that we would just have to suck up, because we were not the special snowflakes that we thought we were.
    So I started the course. Jumped in ditches, swung across a creek, ran up a hill, ran back down the hill, hauled my arse over a wall, crawled under a menacing layer of barbed-wire fencing and navigated my way through a maze of tyres while crawling through the mud.
    And it was at this point that it all went pear-shaped. And being pear-shaped was the whole problem, as my newly acquired hips just didn’t want to go through that first tyre.
    My arms went through easily enough, followed by my head and shoulders. But then either the tyre magically shrank five centimetres or my hips suddenly exploded in deference to my impending womanhood. Either way, I was wedged in tight. There was no going forward, and no going back.
    I am hysterical by nature, so rather than trying calmly to extricate myself, I wriggled and thrashed around in a desperate attempt to shake myself free. Needless to say, my increasingly frantic motions had the opposite effect. If anything, I was now wedged tighter.
    Fuckety fuckety fuck!
    Exhausted, both mentally and physically, I lay there. The rain grew heavier. I shut my eyes.
    Eventually the girl doing the course behind me caught up and, correctly assessing my sticky (as in stuck) situation, alerted the authorities. Loudly. This, of course, drew a crowd.
    Now, I can honestly say that teenage girls are bitches. Someone produced a camera (thank GOD there were no iPhones and Facebook back then) and started snapping away as if I was some sort of freak show. By this point I was screaming like a banshee at the girl with the camera to stop. And you can guess what effect swelling with rage had on my predicament.
    The teachers went completely mental, shouting at everyone to calm down while clearly panicking as they wondered how the fuck they were going to explain to my parents that I now came with a spare.
    The rest of the audience was relocated back to the main camp while the teachers tried to work out the physics required to free me. It took a very long time, but they finally managed to dig out the part of the tyre that was buried in the mud and pull me up to a standing position—still with the tyre around my hips.
    The teachers were trying to decide the best way to cut through rubber when I realised that my spare tyre seemed a little looser.
    Gingerly, gingerly, gingerly, the teachers rotated the tyre over my gargantuan hips and down to the ground.
    I stepped out. I was free! I told my saviours that, after the stress of my ordeal, I wanted to go home. They replied, ‘Tough luck.’ I started to cry.
    Then we made our way back to the main camp, where I was greeted with a welcome normally reserved for astronauts returning from a space mission. I quickly found the photographer and told her what I thought of her. She promised to give me the photos once she’d had the film developed and swore she would show no one.
    Which was complete bullshit, as the photos were subsequently used in a slide show presented to the rest of the year level, who had gone on different camps. IT WAS THE FIRST SLIDE. That girl is lucky I am so nice, as I am very tempted to write her name right here on this page, so everyone can know what a double-crossing bitch she is. But I won’t.
    But we’d better move on quickly