Tape Socks

You would think things would change a lot because of her being in high school. they didn't; she was still that girl who beat me at speed and poker. I could still look at her binder every time I forgot her name(I'm ashamed to say that happened often). The only difference now was I knew her age and what she was doing after class. High school.

Time went by like it usually did in the training room: card-playing and athlete-taping. To keep our taping up to par, we practiced on ourselves; our mistakes making each other uncomfortable for five minutes as we walked around the room with badly taped ankles, instead of our mistakes breaking a football player's ankle because we forgot a strip.

I didn't really need that much practice with my ankle tape job, so I goofed off with Steve number four instead. Steve got his title by having the most common name in the class; two others where also named Steve. We jokingly said the title of number three was reserved in case another, fourth, Steve showed up. He took it in good spirits and I liked him for it. He was my favorite dude in the training room. That didn't include my best friend of 15 years, Ben. As of right now, it's more like 16.

One day, we where feeling especially mischievous. Anybody would do, we weren't that picky and we didn't really have a plan. Ash became our victim because the opportunity was too good to pass up.

She was talking on her phone with God-knows-who about God-knows-what. She was also sitting on the taping platform in brightly colored socks and shoes. I liked those socks, and I thought I should give her some of my own.

Steve and I asked her if we could practice tape jobs on her ankles. She consented, but , being too busy on the phone, she couldn't take off her shoes and socks, Steve and I would have to do the deed. We took off her footwear and taped her ankles; very routine, nothing unusual. Then, very sneaky like, we started to tape her toes individually. She didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. we had gone beyond the point of no return and we were in control.

After taping each of her toes multiple times, we taped them all together, toes and then feet. She looked like she had two feet in the same cast. Steve and I thought it was hilarious. Ash thought it was annoying. Mildly amusing, but still annoying.

You would think, since no major change happened when I discovered she was a high school student, nothing would change from the tape sock incident. You would be wrong.

What's in a Name?

Things went on like that for a little while. Eventually, I learned her name by figuring out which binder was hers, because asking would have been too easy. Conveniently, it had her name in gian letters written across the front. We had become what I like to call classroom friends. We talked and hung out when we had class together, but other than that, we had no contact. To me, she was just another college student, taking the practicum class on a whim or for a few extra credits.
One day, Brad, one of the other students, asked me to drive him to his class on one of the training room golf carts. the golf carts where officially for the head trainers' use only, taking them and various sport supplies to and from the athletic events around the campus. Unofficially, the students in the practicum class used them to drop each other off at class, their cars and the different food vendors around the school. So it wasn't an unusual thing for Brad to ask or for me to oblige.
As I was collecting the keys and telling one of the trainers I was borrowing the cart, Ash asked if she could get a ride as well. Sure, why not? Ash drove with Brad riding shotgun and I rode in the back. The ride was uneventful: Brad talked to me about stupid things that I only had half an interest in. When we stopped at the edge of one of the parking lots next to the main street, I did what I always do when I'm dropping a stranger off that their car- I tried to guess which car belonged to said stranger. Nothing stood out to me, so I asked where she was parked. at this point, Brad spoke up with the first truly interesting thing he had said all day, "She is going to the high school." The high school across the street? Wow. Uh, ok. I'll let you get going girl-who-I-thought-was-my-age-but-I-now-know-is-still-in-high-school. Your really how old? 17? That's funny, you don't really look it. See you next week.