Asphyxiation.

As you may or may not recall, I went to Catholic school for six years. The Catholic school that I went to, St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Woburn, Massachusetts, accepted students from kindergarten through eighth grade. (Thankfully, I was able to escape just after the fifth grade.) The school was very small, with probably only sixty or so students in each grade at any given time. Classes were split into two buildings - grades K-4 in the "Lower Building" and grades 5-8 in the "Upper Building." The younger kids would go to the Upper Building for gym class, and the older kids would go to the Lower Building for the library, and all of the kids would go to the church on the first Friday of every month. Other than that though, you were confined to your tiny little building for the entirety of the day, every day - except for at recess.

Now I will tell you - there were a lot of weird things about Catholic school. Things that I didn't realize were bizarre until after I moved on into a public school setting, but things that were definitely, definitely strange. Gym class, for example, did not often touch upon the regularities of physical education. We didn't play football or baseball, we didn't really do too much as far as gymnastics went, or volleyball. We did, however, do a lot of jumping jacks. Like, a lot. Also, that parachute thing that you sometimes do in school? You know, where you all stand around a parachute and flop it around and hide under it and stuff, the thing that's pretty big in preschools apparently? Yeah, that was part of gym class too, every year. And the most interesting part of gym class? We didn't have a gym. Nope, apparently since the classes were so small, they felt as though we could handle holding gym class in the auditorium, in the space between the front row of seats and the stage. Completely normal, right? Oh, totally.

Lunch was also completely bizarre in Catholic school. Our cafeteria (which now, come to think of it, could easily have seconded as a gym?) was pretty average-looking. There were five long rows of tables, and for some reason, there was a small stage at the head of the room. Any tiny shred of normalcy ends right there, though. Once you arrived in the cafeteria, you were required to sit with your class. Too bad if you have friends or family in a different grade. Pretend they don't exist, because you're not going to be able to sit with them. Also, don't even think about being too loud in Catholic school lunch, because the assistant principal will stand on the stage and yell, and then he'll shut all the lights off. You'd better be quiet when those lights are off, or you will be punched directly in the face and sent straight to hell. Lastly, you'd better hope your parents gave you a bagged lunch in the morning, because hot lunch did not become an option at St. Chucks until I was in the fourth grade. "Well," you're thinking, "at least they got it eventually." Not really. They sort of started serving hot dogs sometimes and pizza sometimes, but you'd better believe that you had to order that shit days in advance. There was no coming to school and thinking that you might want pizza that day. If you weren't on the pizza roster, you were out of luck.

Uniforms are a given for Catholic school. "Oh, uniforms! What a good idea! Students will be less likely to focus on fashion and fitting in, and therefore they will be more likely to study and be awesome and have tons of friends!" Hardly. Here is the one thing that uniforms were good for: making you freeze your fucking ass off in the winter. Not the boys! Oh no, not the boys. The boys' uniform consisted of a blue button-up collared shirt, a tie, a sweater if the mood struck, and navy blue pants. Yep, pants. But the girls didn't get pants. No, regardless of the weather, I got to wear a skirt. Yes, that knee length plaid skirt that, if you are a man, you are drooling about right now. I was ten though, please calm down. Blue button-up collared shirt, girl tie, a cardigan if the mood struck, and a knee high skirt in the middle of fucking winter, too bad, deal with it, we don't care if it's cold. "If it gets to be very chilly, please feel free to wear knee high socks." Oh, you're right, knee high socks will save me from these frigid winds, thank you mein fuhrer.

And lastly, recess. Oh recess, how odd you were in Catholic school. The grounds of St. Charles School were sort of awkward. (At this point, it shouldn't shock you that anything about this school was awkward, but I feel the need to mention it.) For instance, there was no playground. Honestly, there wasn't even really any grass. There was an upper level patch of lawn, sort of, that served as the recess area for the fifth through eighth graders, but the kindergartners through fourth graders had to run around a giant closed-off parking lot. Also, the upper level students and the lower level students could not mingle. Do not even think about trying to go to the other recess area, you will be slaughtered. Now honestly, this didn't make too much of a difference to me. Through the fourth grade, I had no desire to visit the upper level recess area, because everyone that was up there was older than me and therefore terrifying. Also, for second through fourth grade, my younger sister Jenny was around, so we got to play foursquare and jumprope and the like. (Shockingly enough, classes weren't segregated at recess, though I'm sure that was only because they couldn't think of an efficient enough way to do it.) Then, once I hit fifth grade, I didn't feel the need to go to the lower level recess area, because my youngest sister Steph had started there that year, and I knew that Jenny and Steph had each other, and I could enjoy my 5x5 foot area of grass like the upperclassman that I was.

Now this is where shit starts to get ugly. One day, while I was enjoying the hell out of myself on the grassy knoll, a mysterious stranger approached me and said, "Your sister is at the bottom of the stairs and she wants to talk to you." (Dear mysterious stranger, I just don't really remember who you were, sorry. You're not incredibly relevant to the story, so please forgive me.) I went to the top of the stairs that separated the two recesses and saw my sister at the bottom, looking shaken and nervous. I knew that something must be up because, a.) Steph was nowhere to be seen, and the two of them were generally attached at the hip, and b.) talking to people in other recess was almost as bad as trying to cross into other recess, and Jenny wasn't one for breaking the rules. I asked her, from the top of the stairs, what was up. She said

"Steph's having an asthma attack and they won't let us go into the building so she can use her inhaler and I don't know what to do."

Okay, now. Really? My asthmatic sister, who was literally five years old, was asphyxiating in a concrete parking lot. I never understood the point of keeping asthma inhalers in nurses' offices, but that's where it was, and it was not doing her any good as such. Recess was fifteen minutes long, and we were only just moments into it. If she did not get to an inhaler, it is likely that she could have died. So I told Jenny to talk to a recess attendant, and she said that she had, and they'd told her to wait until recess was over. My mind was racing, it was up to me at this very moment to save my sister's life! So I told Jenny to wait at the bottom of the stairs, and I found an upper level recess attendant. I said,

"My sister is having an asthma attack and they won't let her into the building to get her inhaler."

and the recess attendant told me,

"Muahaha, she's going to die in the fiery pits of hell for being born with less-than-average lungs! Say your prayers to the lord god above, because no one can save her now!"

(Alright, she actually said "I'm sorry, but she'll have to wait until recess is over, we can't let her inside just yet." But I mean, same thing, right?)

So I went back to the top of the stairs, and Jenny was in a panic. It was at that point that I realized what I had to do. I looked to my left, and I looked to my right, and when I was certain the coast was clear - I went into lower recess area.

Now really, I don't know who I think I was fooling. As I have previously mentioned, my uniform was a blue shirt and a blue skirt. That was for students in grades five through eight. Suddenly, I found myself wading through a pool of girls in yellow shirts and green plaid jumpers - the uniform for grades K through four. But it didn't matter, I was on a mission. I had Jenny lead me to my slowly-expiring sister, and when we got to her, she was knocking on death's door. (I'm probably exaggerating a bit. You know, traumatic memories always seem worse in your head. Really though, she wasn't awesome.) I assured her that everything would be alright, and I flagged down the lower level recess attendant who, obviously, realized that I was out of place. Before she could try to tell me that I needed to go back to the grass patch, I said in as serious and angry a voice as I could muster,

"My sister is having an asthma attack and if you don't let her get her inhaler, she will die."

I think at this point, recess was probably almost over, but apparently the woman realized that I wasn't fucking around. Steph was finally allowed inside the building, and thankfully she did not die. (I know, you were worried.)

And that's it. That's a pretty accurate representation of my memories of Catholic school. Was my education incredible? Of course it was. Did I learn things there that still affect my life? Yes I did. Would I ever send my kids to Catholic school? Maybe. But probably not if they have asthma.