Padilla 1

Jorge Padilla
Professor Jackie Hymes
English 113A
9-9-15
Jester Padilla
We all have our own regrets; this story is about a period of my life. Ive regretted doing
many things, one of those being the time I almost got myself kicked off the water polo team.
The way this story begins is the day my good friend Andrew introduced me to this sweet,
charming, pretty, girl that I can truthfully say I fell in love with; her name was Karina. On a short
note she did end up breaking my heart, so Fuck her. Yes, I was crazy about her, how crazy? She
was insanely beautiful and she had that hot nerdy girl type of attire. She wore thick glasses,
along with short shorts, and always had on big sweaters that didnt fit her, but that just made her
even more appealing. Let me just put it this way, every particle in me wanted to be with her
every second, of every moment of my life. We met because one day my friend Andrew was
going to go see his girlfriend Michelle during lunch and I just tagged along. Blah Blah Blah so
we introduced ourselves, but then we hit it off really well I made her laugh a lot because of the
fool I would make myself in front her and Michelle. Once we had actually started talking though
I realized that this girl was in one of my classes. From that point on we would converse regularly
in that class. More often then we shouldve since we would get called out by the teacher from
time to time for the constant laughing, talking, and other shenanigans that would go on.
Unfortunately, I only shared that one class with her, and to me that wasnt enough. It
worked like this, every student had to have 8 classes in their curriculum and my high school
decided to split 4 of our periods into one day and the other four on the next. Basically youd go

Padilla 2
to 3 classes on one week but then 2 times on the following week and it was like this constantly.
So to me that wasnt enough time to socialize with her. I had to find an alternative way in which I
could spend more of my time with this girl. Returning to the mindset I had in high school, there
was this hypothesis that I had that if I were to spend a majority of my time with any girl, shed
eventually fall in love with me, regardless of whatever her interests in guys were and for some
reason I accepted this hypothesis. Yes, I thought this would work on all the ladies.
Well it came to the point when I had tried everything to make her laugh, and we ran out
of things to talk about, since my master plan of constantly spending time with women was in
action
.Eventually, I noticed the majority of the time I would make her laugh was because I was
making a fool of myself in front of her. So one day Michelle had the remarkable idea of applying
cosmetics on my face, eye liner to be exact. Karina without an ounce of exaggeration accepted
the notion, so naturally I went along with plan. Once they had completed their process of my
beautification the lunch bell had just rang. The following class that came after lunch was water
polo which was a class that consisted only of boys. So I was embarrassed of the makeup that was
on my face and when I tried to wash it off it wouldnt come off. Thats when I felt it. Regret, it
hit me in the face like Michelle did with this so called plaster like mascara. The only words came
to mind at that moment that describe my embarrassment other than What the fuck have I done?
were Why did I do this?. I didnt know what was going to come of this but I knew from that
moment on it wasnt something good.
From then on, I cautiously tried to walked to the pool grounds while I avoided everyone I
knew that was going to their own classes. By the time I made it to the pool the only thoughts
going through my mind were I just have to wait in the lockers until practice starts since the

Padilla 3
makeup wasnt washing off with regular water I prayed the chlorinated water would do the trick.
Then it came and I heard my coach yell Scrimmage!. I felt so relieved since we were finally
getting in, although I did expose my face to a couple of my team mates, it was a necessary action
that had to take place for me to get into my speedo. Shortly after my coach wanted to give an
announcement for an important upcoming tournament we were going to be in and I assume it
was a motivational speech of some sort; I didnt really listen to it though since I was preoccupied
with my dilemma. While he was giving his speech everyone kept laughing at me and since I was
the center of attention coach assumed it was me doing this on purpose. After trying to kick me
off the team I explained to him why I had the makeup on my face, but Im pretty sure everyone
was convinced with the idea that I was gay. With disregard of my explanation he still tried to
kick me off the team, but in all fairness I was asking for attention just not from my team. Thats
when I had begun to cry but not out of anger or sadness, just regret. What made me angry wasnt
the fact that my teammates were laughing at me while this whole thing was happening to me,
what did make me angry was the fact that after this issue calmed down I was the one shunned. I
then gave my explanation to the sports councilor and explained to him the why I was really being
kicked off the team. The assistant principal then followed up this situation by enforcing stricter
anti-hazing policies on the water polo team; I think thats what ended up pissing them off. Which
is what caused my team mates spite towards me throughout the season. I use to love water polo,
ever since then I hated it.
That day was a huge regret for me. Since then I promised myself to never make myself
look like an idiot for a girls attention. I regret that now and I realized that, like my water polo
team, Karina laughed at me not with me. Im not saying that Karina is the one to blame for the
problems that came to me since it was my actions that were being held accounted for.