If you want to know what stops my heart it is a mom in Ian’s class telling me that she read my blog.
I don’t keep it a secret. I am not anonymous. I am mostly pretty proud of my work here, but this was this morning and I happen to know I wrote a post this week about testicles and I only know this lady from kindergarten class parties. I have no idea what is coming next.
Fortunately it was ” I read your post about your underwear falling down at Tae Kwon Do. I was reading it at work and I was laughing so hard I was crying. I can completely relate.”
I got lucky. This particular mom is very cool and has a sense of humor.
Now two parents from Ian’s kindergarten class have approached me about my underpants issues. I am thrilled that they are reading me and like my work, but I have two concerns.
1) If you google my first and last name and, I don’t know, zip code, is the first thing that comes up The Saga of the Traveling Underpants?
and
2) Am I going to become known as the lady who had underwear problems at Tae Kwon Do?
I guess these are the risks that you run when you tell all of your most embarrassing stories to the internet.
I’ve been trying to quit Tae Kwon Do for about a month now.
I signed up for Tae Kwon Do back in December. I was taking with my kids and it was fun… ish, but then it turned out that even though I was in a class with my kids we were learning different things. They needed one skill set to get their yellow belts and I needed another, adult, skill set that involved blocks and things I don’t understand. So I would be separated from my kids in class if there were two or more instructors.
If there was only one instructor that day I would just do whatever the little kids did.
Just as I was becoming more and more frustrated it was time to test.
I was not ready for my yellow belt testing. The kids were all set. They could count to 10 in Korean, they knew the focuses and they knew the pattern/yelly thing that probably has a name that I don’t know and they were prepared to break some boards.
I just wanted to use that 30 minutes to walk over to Trader Joe’s to get something to make for dinner.
I kind of stopped going, but the master shamed me into coming back.
But it gets better – or worse. It costs $50 per person to test for a belt.
$50 x 3 = $150
Each person needs their own sparring gear once one advances to the yellow belt. Each set of sparring gear costs $190.
$190 x 3 = $570
Here comes the math joke.
$150 + $570 > Sarah is willing to spend to make an ass out of herself in front of people.
I don’t mind spending a lot of money for something my children enjoy. Hell, I don’t mind spending disgusting amounts of money on things that I enjoy. I figured I was not getting $240 worth of enjoyment out of Tae Kwon Do and so I should quit and spend that money on a nice gym membership.
So I tried to quit again.
Again, the master shamed me. Do it for the children!
Fine.
But I went home and thought about it. How is he going to argue with me if I don’t have the money, because really, isn’t that why he wants me there in the first place?
After The Goon Squad earned their yellow belts I took my children to the little kid class. The ones adults aren’t supposed to go to. I am very tricky.
The master asked me why I wasn’t coming to class.
I told him it was too much money to buy all of the equipment for sparring and that I didn’t know my blocks and I just wasn’t feeling it.
HE TRICKED ME AGAIN!
He told me that I didn’t have to test and I didn’t have to buy all of the equipment and that money should not be the thing stopping me from setting a good example for my children. He said if it came down to it and I really couldn’t afford it I could help out by answering phones there in the studio.
He was so nice! He was so reasonable! I don’t have to give him any money!
The problem is that I really, really just don’t want to do it. It isn’t that I am lazy. I have been out walking almost every day and I do my elliptical at least five times a week. I just don’t want to do this.
A couple of weeks ago I only had two pairs of white underpants.
I had a pair of white thong underpants and a giant pair of white granny panties.
I know this for sure because I need to wear white underwear under my dobok.
Remember how I told you I signed up for Tae Kwon Do? A dobok is a Tae Kwon Do uniform.
I found myself in a predicament. I could either start doing a lot more laundry or I could go out and buy some more white underwear.
Obviously I went to the store.
I didn’t have a lot of time so I went to Target. Plus, this didn’t have to be awesome underwear. I was going to wear it to kick people. I found a pack that was three pairs (pair?) of white thong panties for $11. Perfect for wearing under white pants. Right?
Now, I don’t really want to get into this here. I have an entire blog dedicated to my weight issues, but I do need to tell you that I wasn’t sure if I needed to buy large or XL underpants. These looked pretty roomy so I went with the large.
Later that Day…
I went to my second Tae Kwon Do class feeling nervous. In my first class I fully expected to look like an idiot and I had made my peace with it. This was my second class and the masters would probably presume I sort of knew what was going on at this point.
But things got sort of strange. There was a family there that seemed to be training to be masters or something.
Our regular two teachers were there but there was also a family of four: a mom, a dad, and two sons who looked to be about nine and eleven who seemed to be running the class. And they all had special blue tunics.
We did the stretching and the warm ups and thing where you count and do your little poses (give me time, I’m sure I will learn what these things are called) and then we got into two lines and the family in the blue tunics pulled out some mini trampolines.
The idea was that we ran up to the trampoline, jumped, did our kick and then ran back into the line.
This is great exercise. It is good cardio and an excellent way to practice kicks and body control.
It is also kind of fun, but only if you wore the right underpants.
In my case large was too large.
As soon as I started running my underpants started falling down.
A lot.
The kind of falling down where if I had been wearing a skirt my underpants would have been around my ankles.
But I was wearing pants so the crotch of my underpants were where it was supposed to be and the sides were down around my outer thighs.
If it had just been me and the other 11 five and six year olds in my class I would have just reached into my pants and hiked up my underwear, but one side of the studio is mirrors and one side is entirely parents.
And I know most of the parents.
I am in a predicament. I am supposed to be focused on the task (or the master will never give me a sticker) but my underwear is falling down and that is very distracting.
I am also starting to wonder if the parents can see that my underpants are falling down through my white pants.
I am also seriously glad I didn’t buy the extra larges.
In the end I decided on first actually reaching into the leg of my pants and pulling up my underwear, and later just kicking stuff with my drawers practically down to my knees.
This pair of underwear was freakishly stretchy.
And when I got home I threw the underpants in the trash can.
You know, writing this I realize that even though this happened to me two weeks ago I still haven’t solved my problem. In fact, I have actually just been doing more laundry like some kind of sucker. I guess I’ll be going back to the store to look for more white underpants.
And this time I will strongly consider purchasing the mediums.
Well, I was tricked into signing up for Tae Kwon Do.
Let me back up a little bit.
My five year old son has been dying to take Tae Kwon Do ever since he found out that his best friend at preschool was taking it. I finally got around to signing him up for it a couple of weeks ago.
There was a special where you got your first four lessons and a do-bok (that is how you say little white outfit in Korean) for $79. It isn’t cheap, but he was all about it and my husband and I both thought he would get a lot out of it especially in the area of body control.
You know how little boys are always running in to things.
After two lessons (which he adored) his twin sister decided that she might like it too. So I signed her up.
Last Tuesday I took them in for his fourth lesson and her second lesson. Before the class even started I was whisked in to the office where the Master sat – not one of the underling masters but The Master, the main man, the guy that owns the joint.
It was time for the hard sell.
I don’t have the exact figures but signing the two of them up for a year came to somewhere around one million dollars.
Okay, it was significantly less than one million but also significantly more than I had in my bank account. In fact, thinking about it makes me want to vomit, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Both children love it, it is marvelous exercise and a lot of their friends from school are in there.
Then The Master says to me “What about you?”
I am thinking: There is no fucking way. There are like four other adults here in the kids classes and they all look like gigantic tool bags.The last thing I need to do is spend another $800 to look like an asshole.
My subconscious has a filthy mouth.
I am saying “No. I really can’t afford it.”
Then The Master drops the bomb. “I will give you one year for free if you take the class with the children. It helps them learn at home and stay involved.”
Oh Shit. I think. How can I turn down a year of free Tae Kwon Do? This would actually give me something to write about on Loser Moms.
The Master said that he would give me the free year, but I actually had to show up. If I didn’t actually take the classes he was going to charge me.
So I said yes.
But I was scared.
Really. I didn’t want to do it. My kids were through the roof excited, but I was very apprehensive.
I didn’t want to look like an idiot.
What if I sucked at it?
What if it was hard?
What if all of the five year olds were better than me?
But I had committed to this.
So yesterday I had my first lesson. It was awkward. I had no idea what the lady was saying. Some other parents I knew were there watching their children. But when we broke up in to groups I knew everybody in my group. It was me, Ian (5), Claudia (5), Paige (5) and Emma (6).
I think I probably did look like a tool, but it was kind of fun.
And I wasn’t too bad at it.
And Emma’s mom was really nice about it. She gave me a thumbs up and everything.
So yeah.
My name is Sarah and I am a white belt in Tae Kwon Do.
