The Itchy Statue

In college, sometimes we go out of our way to get extra credit in a course. Sometimes we need it, and sometimes we do it just to impress someone who is trying to get it as well. In my case, it was a little bit of both. Our history teacher, a person so obsessed with the Greek culture that she would devour one if she ever came across one, decided to put up an event where her students would be portraying living statues in front of the entire university.
A bit nerve wrecking, but I needed the extra credit.

As we prepared for it, I realize my greek costume looks more like a 5 year old's attempt at a ghost during halloween. And yet, I continued. My sandals weren't very greek either, but instead were those monster "man-dals" full of mud. Close enough, I suppose. And so, we all marched into the main entrance and started to take our places. I was quite happy with this, considering all I would have to do is stand still and not do a thing.

The professor started placing us in our spots, and once my turn came, I was quite satisfied with my spot. I had plenty of shade, a steady base to stand on, plenty of visibility to see who was watching, I was close enough to an exit where I could bail. What could possibly go wrong, right?

As the event started, I started to get a slight itchy sensation in my left leg. Perhaps it was just the fact that I was standing still and my body was just messing with me. You know, like how we get an itchy nose as soon as we use both of our hands to lift something heavy. Well, I was having the same situation in my leg. Something didn't feel right. And for once during that day, I began to suspect something was going wrong.

As it turns out, the professor had placed me on top of an ant hill and didn't realize it. And I'm not talking about an approximation to the object in question, I'm talking about being placed right on top of the thing. So imagine, to my surprise, how it felt to have all those ants suddenly try to crawl up my leg. And that's when my problem came up. How was a statue supposed to scratch his legs if he couldn't move?

I could hear them singing in unison as they marched up my legs.

And once the professor turned around, I scratched my leg with the opposing leg's foot. I scratched as discretely as possible. But this is college, nothing goes unnoticed. All my friends started noticing my predicament. I was a statue standing on top of an ant hill and I was trying to scratch myself to the end of this event in one piece. And after what seemed like an eternity later, the event ended and I rushed off in a blind fury towards the men's room.

With one great swoop of a moist paper towel, I scraped off all those pesky ants that were still troubling me. Needless to say, I did get to make an impression that day, even though it wasn't the one I wanted. For a bit, people were talking about the itchy statue. And even though it faded into obscurity, it's one of those things that got me noticed for a brief time.

And yes, I did manage to get the extra credit. Did I impress the girl? Well, if you count making her laugh on account of your accidental predicament, then yes.