THE ANNUAL FAIRFAX GAMES: May the Odds NEVER Be in Your Favor!

This year’s games are heating up, as teachers prepare to take their pent-up aggression out on students

THE ANNUAL FAIRFAX GAMES: May the Odds NEVER Be in Your Favor!

It’s that time of the year again! Time for the annual Fairfax Games: and you know what that means: time to round up the slackers, skippers, and all-around misbehaving students!

Earlier today, School Board member Ryan McElveen released this year’s list of tributes… er… participating students for the 2014 Games: Six students from Edison, four from Mount Vernon, four from Falls Church, five from West Potomac, and a whopping eight from South County. With the amount of students from South County, which boasts the highest number of victors since the Games’ inception, it is expected to be a great game. South County has had at least two victors from every game for the past 12 years. They may not be attending their classes, but they sure are learning those survival skills!

The Fairfax Games began in 1998 when a generation of slacking, skipping, and all-around troublemaking students nearly caused the school district to shut down due to a bureaucratic backlog generated by having to deal with them. Drastic measures needed to be taken.

And lo the School Board sent forth a decree: “All who shall slack, skip, or otherwise create difficulty in school instead of focusing on their learning will be gathered up on April 15, and the greatest offenders among these shall be placed in an arena of their instructor’s choice, and given one chance to escape their teachers’ wrath and redeem themselves.”

Teachers are given a weapon of their choice, while miscreant students are left to fend for themselves. If the student escapes their doom, they are given a free ticket to stay out of school for the rest of that year. Students selected to participate are those who have demonstrated the most egregious records of skipping school, creating disturbances in the school environment, or otherwise slacking off and not doing their assignments.

Buzzing with excitement, teachers eagerly anticipate dishing out payback to the students who cause them endless amounts of problems, like the mountains of paperwork they must fill out, or meetings they must attend when a student doesn’t do what they are sup posed to. “It’s a fundamental unfairness of the universe,” says English teacher Kati Ellsberry. “When a student doesn’t follow the rules, it creates significantly more work for me. But I feel like the Games balance the scales… I can’t wait to hunt the little b**t*rds down!”

Now for the exciting news! This year’s Fairfax Games will be held at Huntley Meadows Park, located here in Alexandria. Huntley Meadows is an ideal location to hold the Games, with its stretches of hickory and oak trees, tall grass, water ponds, and plenty of hiding spots so that the offenders have some semblance of a fighting chance. These elements should come together to create a terrific game!

The decision to hold it at Huntley Meadows was made after last year’s Games, held in Fountainhead Regional Park, which resulted in too many escaping victors, and an unfortunate accident involving a nearby picnicking family and their poodle, Fluffy.

The last time WestPo had a victor was in 2010, when the Games were held at Green Spring Garden. There were a total of 13 participants that year, two of which were from WestPo. As the other 11 participants were quickly taken down,the two Wolverines were about to make a clean getaway through the treacherous arena, until they were cornered by a roving pack of P.E. teachers. Thinking quickly, the victor tripped her teammate, leaving him behind to be scooped up by the volleyball nets the gym teachers were using to ensnare them, enabling her to race across the finish line… and to victory! That was a Games moment no one will ever forget!

Hopes are high for this year’s Games: teachers will be rooting for teachers, students for the students — it should prove to be quite the event! There is a bumper crop of new deliquents, and some seriously angry faculty to chase them — see YOU at the Fairfax Games!