4th Grade Grit

"My administrator wants us to film a video about grit," I told my husband, already envisioning how cute I would look in fringed buckskins and a cowboy hat. I wondered if I could talk my neighbor into loaning us her horse for an hour. My husband frowned at me. "Why do you always go to the obvious," he asked. "Just because the theme is grit, doesn't mean that you have to do a re-make of True Grit. Lots of movies use that same theme." "Oh yeah..." I snarled at Brad, "Like what?

Which is how, several weeks later found my grade level team dressed like rejects from the pre-pre-pre-Olympic Squad, exhausting ourselves by "pretending" to race up the football bleachers to resemble that iconic moment in "Rocky." Prior to shooting, Rachel, adorable in a bouncy ponytail, commented, "Wow, being dressed in work-out clothes almost makes me feel like working out!" Following our third take, she gasped, "Never mind." Meanwhile, our friend Kelly bounded up the stairs like a bunny. When it was time to punch someone in the face with a boxing glove, we were more than happy to take aim at Kel.

"This won't take any more than twelve minutes to film," I promised several times over the course of the three hours it took us to tape our footage. "What's my motivation," my friend Geri asked as we were set to begin our inspirational dialogue scene. "To get done so we can go home and eat dinner," I told her. "Good enough," she replied.

Depicted as our motivational coach, our friend Sondra was the only one professional enough to remain in character as we stumbled up steps, bounced off padded walls, and flopped over onto the floor...all in our quest to develop grit. "This won't take any more than twelve minutes," I kept repeating, "If you bozos would stop giggling."

Too late, I realized that a behind-the-scenes documentary would have revealed the real story:  The grit it took to film a movie about grit. Ideally, it would be about twelve minutes in length.