The Joys of Physical Education

I've been reflecting a lot on my youth as of late. Reflecting is perhaps a poor descritive as what I'm really doing is frantically digging because my memory is really quite horrible but that's probably for another post. EHHH-nyway I had recently tripped over a rather amusing nugget of repressed memory and have been giving it a rather large amount of thought. It was my first year of high school and I was in a PDH (Physical Development and Health) class. Not one of the horrible PE lessons where roid rage is concentrated firmly on crappy athletes (ala me) and kids who forgot their sport uniform (I avoided this because that would make me the ultimate PE teacher target). No we were in the classroom being fed the ills of smoking. At this point in my education I was probably in my 100th "no smoking" lesson of my life and was quite tired of hearing that they kill you. Just for the record I didn't and don't currently smoke. ONE thing I can remember clearly from that lesson was one of those godawful cartoon characters who skate, rollerskate and use inappropriate surfie slang. I remember a character saying, and I quote, "I'd rather drink a fish milkshake" in regard to smoking. At the time I dismissed it as silly. My friend and I joked about rather smoking than the milkshake. On reflection I think I was on to something. A fish milkshake is extremely objectionable. I WOULD rather smoke a cigarette than drink a fish milkshake...who wouldn't? This got me further wondering. Of course the point of the cartoon was to use hyperbole to stop kids smoking but really didn't it just discredit itself? Next to a fish milkshake a cigarette looks pretty good and once you've started kids along this train of thought there's alot of stuff that cigarettes compare favourably to. "I know I'm a pack a day smoker at 14, but at least I don t eat shit sandwiches." The cartoon would've been far more effective if it had gone for the honest route. "I'd rather not smoke at all thanks, I want a more healthy lifestyle" or even just a "no thanks" would've been FAR more effective and FAR less detrimental. I feel that PE would be extremely more effective if it managed to equip kids with the skills to wriggle out of peer pressure. Saying "I'd rather a fisk milkshake" to the cool kids when they're offering fags just makes you seem like the "weird kid." Getting out of it and still having friends is the goal here isn't it? Most people quietly respect a person who's not out to impress by giving in to pressure. Anyway so I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that PDH was and still is a waste of everybodies time and it can suck my cock.