High School Stories We Still Tell

Here, for remembrance sake, are the stories that my friends and I still tell when we get together.

Alberto’s parents are out of town. He invites us over to watch movies, but says I can’t come because his mom doesn’t want girls in the house and his parents have spies watching the house (you can say that shit in Sugar Land and it might be true). The time comes for James, Michael, Alberto, and David to leave for Alberto’s. Michael says “I got a carpet pad roll in the back of my truck. Let’s go scare the shit out of him.” So the boys ROLL ME UP IN THE CARPET PAD and show up at Alberto’s door with them standing at the door like contractors. They bring in the carpet pad and set it down. When they unrolled me, Alberto’s eyes almost turned inside out. He said, and I quote, “WHAT THE FUCK, you guys!”

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James, Michael, Alberto, and I used to go out on the golf course at the country club and play in the sand. I’m sure we wrote some unprintable things. We were leaving the golf course after raking it over, and Alberto said that he had night vision. Just then, he stepped into a puddle up to his knee and we all rolled on the ground.

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James is a famous prankster, so he got on one phone line in the house and got his mother on the other. Allison, his sister, is listening in. In this memory, James is recounting the story, and I am asphyxiating with laughter. It didn’t matter that I didn’t see it firsthand.

James (talking like a deaf person): Hi! I’m calling from the American Society of Deaf Individuals. Are you, or anyone you know, a deaf individual?

Mom: N-

James: THAT’S GREAT!

This goes on for another few minutes, including a donation ask, before Mom hangs up the phone.

Allison, FTW, walks past her mom and says, absolutely deadpan, “Geez, Mom. I can’t believe you hung up on a deaf guy.”

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I hated Mr. Skomski, my senior chemistry teacher. To this day, I think it was because he was Asperger’s and I didn’t recognize the signs… because he could do complicated algebraic equations in his head without notes, and at the same time, told a bunch of high school seniors that he was a bouncer at a club in New Orleans for a time. We thought he was weird and uncool, and I’m sad to say I took advantage of him. But I tried to exasperate him in the most clever of ways, because when he told us that he had been a bouncer, for me it was like, “you know we can see you, right?”

The first day of the class, we were in the lab. I think we were doing an experiment with water or playing cards or something like that. Completely non-toxic and extremely un-dangerous. Mr. Skomski is getting up in my face about putting on my safety glasses. He has come over to my table three times to politely ask me to put on my safety glasses. He is getting so pissed that his eyebrows are coming over his forehead, and I’m thinking, “it’s water and playing cards… LET. IT. GO.

But he won’t leave me alone, so I put them on my arm. Defeated, he turned on his heel and walked off. It’s children like me what cause unrest; I regret it, but come on. You have to admit. It’s funny.

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Like when I decided I had a crush on Meagan Atkinson. She had office work every day during my chemistry class (bringin’ it back around), and would come to pick up the attendance every morning. Every damn morning of my senior year, I interrupted his class by, no matter what he was doing, yelling out “hiiii Meagan!” when she arrived. Skomski gave up after about three weeks, and I got the girl. Funny how life works out like that.

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Here is the story of how Meag decided she had a crush on me.

We only had one class together, and that was English with Hudel Steed. Steed and I had a healthy relationship in that I had a healthy fear of her. She was a lawyer and proved to be incredibly clever (and evil). For instance, on the first day of class, she said, “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a few minutes late every day. In their infinite wisdom, the administration has decided that teachers with the most seniority are the ones that have to watch the bathrooms and check for cigarettes. If this is what the administration thinks of seniority, they can shove it.”

Hudel Steed also has my undying respect for two things- a) making me a writer b) introducing me to my first girlfriend (remember that?). Let’s take one thing at a time. We’ll do the girlfriend first since that’s more interesting.

The first day of class, Dr. Steed said that her class was so fucking hard (and I’m paraphrasing) that we could not leave without getting someone’s phone number. CHECKMATE. Meag sat kitty-korner to me and I lunged for her desk.

I walk in the door to my mother’s apartment and the phone is ringing. I had given her every phone number I owned, like you do.

I pick up the phone, and without even saying hello, she said “I’m just curious. Why do you wear those rainbow rings to school every day?”

I said, “because I’m a lesbian. Do you have a problem with that?”

She said, “Noooo! I’m a Melissa Etheridge fan.

“I’m not, but thank you for giving money to my people,” I replied.

From then on, we were inseparable, and all it took was English.

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In my haste to get things posted, I realized that I forgot a story from HSPVA… my 15th birthday. For starters, I wasn’t always the kind of kid that wanted to go to school when she was sick. I didn’t just have the sniffles, either. I was full-on miserable. However, it was my birthday, and I wanted to go. So my parents let me, against their better judgment.

Some time before, my friend the Judge had gotten our entire family into the Republican National Convention. I KNOW!, RIGHT?! While I was there, I bought a shirt made of an American flag. It was a button-down, and it was made of real flag canvas. I was so proud of it until…

I walked into Honors Band, which was first period. Everyone in the entire band was getting ready for warm-up. Those assholes stood up, saluted me, and then sang The Star-Spangled Banner in four-part harmony. With a cymbal crash at the end.

I was mortified. And psyched. For one solid moment, I felt cool.