But What About the Polyester Shorts?

Okay, I've come up with an awesome idea:

Adult P.E.

No, I'm not talking about Pilates, weight training, or distance running. I'm talking about kick, dodgeball, touch football, softball, freeze tag, and playing with a really big parachute. I'm talking about the world of elementary school, updated for people who are old enough to have forgotten the petty humiliations of childhood. I'm talking about big red balls flying at your face. Not like that.

I'm talking about fun.

This is such a good idea that I was sure someone had already come up with it. However, when I googled "Adult PE," I only got information on spinning classes and something called "cardio pump," which sounded both painful and vaguely sexual. I saw no mention of tetherball or HORSE, or all the other fun things that we did when I was a kid. Maybe I wasn't searching in the right places, but I'm starting to think that nobody's doing this.

Of course, there are tons of physical education activities out there, but so few of them offer the community aspect of P.E. For that matter, most of them seem gender-separated. Women take spinning, dancing, and so forth while men take martial arts and golf (Very few women take martial arts. Those are defense classes, and, no, kicking the shit out of a guy in an H.R. Pufinstuff suit doesn't do much to stimulate good cross-gender relations). Even team sports are usually segregated.

P.E. would be about fun, not self-development, competition, or any of that other crap. This wouldn't involve learning a new skill or playing for the best Rugby team in the division. This would involve relearning how to knock someone out in dodgeball or flip a parachute. This would be, by definition, a total, glorious, waste of time. With cardio.

Think about it: for a few bucks a week, you could take classes with people in the same shape as you, so there's no problem with picking people for teams. We'd hire retired P.E. teachers to recreate the vague lesbian tinge that most of us remember from our childhoods. We could have P.E. for committed couples, P.E. for singles, P.E. for Hasidic Jews, and so on. It would be a great place to meet significant others while getting into better shape.

I'm a genius...and the world's best "Simon Says" player.