WAYS IN WHICH MY HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE DIFFERED FROM WHAT IS GENERALLY DEPICTED ON FOX AND THE W.B.
1. School at least a thousand miles from ocean.
2. Nobody ate lunch in the cafeteria, and to be honest, I'm not sure where it was. (We all just went out for lunch every day. It's more freedom than I have now.)
3. Nobody gave a shit how much money you had, really. As long as you put out, your social standing was assured...
4. ...until you got pregnant, at which point you were really screwed. These instances were rarely resolved in a very special two-parter, and in one case actually involved a Homecoming Queen nominee and her step-brother. I think she lost. Speking of-
5. We voted a homosexual - think young Big Gay Al - as Prom King, completely without irony. This as opposed to, you know, beating the shit out of him all the time, which never happened, even in Oklahoma.
6. There was no one standard place to hang out. I understand that this used to be driven by budget constraints, but I fear that after decades of "Arnold's" and "The Max," that the cliche is seeping into bigger budget shows as well.
7. The talent show, as much as there was one, was entirely meaningless and everybody knew it, especially the performers. There would never have been cause for a Standing Ovation, and it would have solved nothing if there had been.
8. We rarely went surfing (see 1.)
9. Skipping class was insanely, and could be done flagrantly and repeatedly with almost no risk of punishment. On certain days (4/20, etc.) the administration would try to set rules in place, but this just tempted the student body more. Again, there would be no reprisal.
10. Proms, and all other dances, were pretty ridiculous. Everybody only went to get their picture taken before running off to whatever was going on afterwards. The pictures were always awful, the picking-up-and-pinning-the-corsage was always painfully awkward, and the dates meant nothing anyway. Every girl had already mastered that She's All That trip down the stairs, which was fine, but the set-up always meant that you had the five minutes of conversation downstairs with the parents while wondering why the hell you chose the white tux jacket.
1. School at least a thousand miles from ocean.
2. Nobody ate lunch in the cafeteria, and to be honest, I'm not sure where it was. (We all just went out for lunch every day. It's more freedom than I have now.)
3. Nobody gave a shit how much money you had, really. As long as you put out, your social standing was assured...
4. ...until you got pregnant, at which point you were really screwed. These instances were rarely resolved in a very special two-parter, and in one case actually involved a Homecoming Queen nominee and her step-brother. I think she lost. Speking of-
5. We voted a homosexual - think young Big Gay Al - as Prom King, completely without irony. This as opposed to, you know, beating the shit out of him all the time, which never happened, even in Oklahoma.
6. There was no one standard place to hang out. I understand that this used to be driven by budget constraints, but I fear that after decades of "Arnold's" and "The Max," that the cliche is seeping into bigger budget shows as well.
7. The talent show, as much as there was one, was entirely meaningless and everybody knew it, especially the performers. There would never have been cause for a Standing Ovation, and it would have solved nothing if there had been.
8. We rarely went surfing (see 1.)
9. Skipping class was insanely, and could be done flagrantly and repeatedly with almost no risk of punishment. On certain days (4/20, etc.) the administration would try to set rules in place, but this just tempted the student body more. Again, there would be no reprisal.
10. Proms, and all other dances, were pretty ridiculous. Everybody only went to get their picture taken before running off to whatever was going on afterwards. The pictures were always awful, the picking-up-and-pinning-the-corsage was always painfully awkward, and the dates meant nothing anyway. Every girl had already mastered that She's All That trip down the stairs, which was fine, but the set-up always meant that you had the five minutes of conversation downstairs with the parents while wondering why the hell you chose the white tux jacket.
MOTHER: Ooh! I LOVE the corsage!
ME: Thanks! I should warn you, there'll probably be some accidental fondling as I pin it, but the embarassment from that will prevent me from doing anything intentional later, I'm sure.
FATHER: (from living room couch) What the hell is that jacket? Are you a ship's captain?
ME: Thanks! I should warn you, there'll probably be some accidental fondling as I pin it, but the embarassment from that will prevent me from doing anything intentional later, I'm sure.
FATHER: (from living room couch) What the hell is that jacket? Are you a ship's captain?
Nobody ended up hooking up with their dates anyway, at least among my friends. After Senior Prom, in the hotel room that we had somehow legally rented, everybody hooked up with somebody, but NOBODY WITH THE PERSON THEY CAME WITH. It was bizarre, and not just a little bit awesome.
10. The religious people weren't marginal 'type' character shunned by the rest of the crowd, but more often than not quite popular. Also, hypocritical.
11. Katie Holmes never slept in my bed, even when I asked really nicely.
10. The religious people weren't marginal 'type' character shunned by the rest of the crowd, but more often than not quite popular. Also, hypocritical.
11. Katie Holmes never slept in my bed, even when I asked really nicely.
posted by Pascals Bookie @ 12:37 PM
2 Comments:
You want to know what always bugged me about high school shows/movies? Kids, especially girls, always dressed up to go to parties. Like, dresses and high heels. They'd often go to school like this as well. Did anyone go to a high school where this actually happened? Because we generally wore jeans 365 days a year. No one really cared if you dressed up, more if you put out (see Dawson's #2). However, in our school, having money wasn't a guarantee of popularity, but you were well aware of who was rich and who wasn't. And the rich kids were far more often the popular ones.....
Years of being forcibly ejected from reminiscent conversations about high school with anyone other than the people with whom I actually went there have taught me that having gone to a private boarding school renders my teenage years completely meaningless with respect to anyone's discussion of the topic.
Post a Comment
<< Home