I live in NYC and we have a notorious shit school system. They were planning to move the school to another place in 4 years so they let it all fall apart and no one bothered to take care of it. The aids who were suppose to help us did nothing and turned us away. The teachers were insane too. We had this science teacher who screamed a lot and was horribly morbid who would constantly talk about his black lab dog non stop. Every day he would come in with a new photo talking in detail about his dog and finally one day while were in class with another teacher we told them about the dog and they looked at us funny and said "he doesn't own a dog, he never had a dog"

Then I had this insane spanish teacher named posso. He would constantly flirt with every single teacher, he had numerous affairs with the other spanish teachers and openly tell the class how much he hates marriage despite being married numerous times and being divorced. He would claim being hispanic makes him incapable of being racist and immediately say racist things. He was a total perv making disgusting remarks to all the female students, told my mother during parent teacher conferences he was ashamed I didn't dress in full make up or bothered to dress feminine. He once went on a mandatory meeting in france with other language teachers and just ran off to do whatever he liked. Running into slums, hanging out with strangers and getting drunk leading to them marking him as missing in action. I couldn't report him either because the school system was absolute dogshit and never listened to complaints.

My principle was also crazy. He was closeted gay I think and despite that would hit on the male teachers, especially posso. Once he took him aside when posso wanted to take us all out for spanish food and said to him "you know you people should be tired of rice and beans by now" and then immediately hit on him. He say crazy things on the speakers like he was proud he gave a hispanic homeless man some gloves or talk about how tragic a former student died in an auto accident and then right after say "remember to look both ways when you cross the street".

Do I have some stories for you, but I have to go to work, so I'll check back in with this later.

Oh high school, so many good and bad things happened there lol. Friends and I used to go to the library and sit outside it to play Yugioh TCG and hang out. Then a friend who was getting her GED at another school-like place would visit for lunch some days since she was close-by. For the most part, I enjoyed most of my classes (except physical education and math) and had some pretty cool teachers. I did have clinical depression that nearly cost me a friendship and I didn't do so well in school during that year and part of the next because of it. The one situation that will never be forgotten is when I yelled at a really nasty person during speech class to "finish your speech and sit the f*** down!" because she was attacking another student. I had stood up from my chair and everything and that was the first time I had really stood up for another person (they had been an ex-friend from my first few years of school as a kid) It was...quite the ordeal lol

I can't think of anything more than that, but those are probably the main highlights of my high school life. I graduated by the skin of my teeth pretty much too

My high school was different because it was so insanely small. I had about 40 students in my graduating class, and Pre K- 12th grade was all in the same building. The mayor of the town was my history teacher! And everybody hated him. He was really conservative, and one time he said "I don't think gays should be able to marry" and I just couldn't take it anymore. I practically shouted, "So you don't think I should be able to get married?" That's how I came out to my classmates. . .and he shut up so damn fast. He never brought it up again. He was always saying stupid shit though, I can't even list it all. He was just a grade A asshole.
I met my wife in that class though. She got in an argument with him and we tag teamed arguing with him. After that we started hanging out and we've been together ever since.

As for friend stories, I have a few. I was friends with this girl who's family owned all the historical landmarks in the small little town, and one was a old house they give tours in. It was notorious for being haunted (it was the house of an old funeral director, they would sometimes keep the bodies in the basement), so she decided to hold a Halloween party there (witch I found out later her and my wife planned it just so she could spend time with me lol). And it was all good until we decided to break out the Ouigi board. We asked who it was, and it said it was the owner of the house. Now, my friend knew the house really well since she worked there and gave tours, so we asked it what it's favorite color was( it was all over the house). And they got it wrong. We asked it who it really was, and it moved to the D. So we stopped and immediately everything went to shit. People were blaming each other, yelling, a girl started crying, the people who had their hands on the plancette were all accusing each other about who moved it. Finally, my wife said she moved it, and everyone calmed down a little. I talked to her the next day, and she promised me she never moved it an inch. She told me they went to the house in the morning and all the drawers and cabinets were open. Weird things kept happening until they got a priest to bless the place.

But other than summoning ghosts and stuff I held videogame parties at my house where me and my friends would play Minecraft together and sometimes pathfinder games. We had bonfires and walked around after dark just talking about dumb stuff.
My high school was kinda shitty and homophobic but I had a really good time. I have more stories, but I think I've rambled for too long already haha.

god it sucked. i live in america and we had a huge social hierarchy and all the popular kids were super stuck up (they vandilized the school for their 'senior prank' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was so awful and unoriginal the past years all had great pranks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) i was basically at the bottom where people would LITERALLY ignore the fact that i existed. it made me super depressed and since i've been out of school and now in college (which has no social hierarchy god its such a relief) my mood has gotten so much better.

Hahaha! Yeah, WELL I had learned to climb because of the trees in the elementary school and my grandfather was an exercise nut. I can't do taxes without help, but I can climb a tree! ;Db

But DAMN it's honestly a huge shame this is such a common experience with people. No one should go through that :\

I took Physics my senior year and for one assignment, we had to make a catapult. So, two things happened. My team won (that's the most important part XD) because we had to aim at small 1 inch figurines and knock all four off of a small box (the box was like 10 inches by 10 inches?) My catapult was made out of Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and a spoon. The funny thing was that there were really good ones but their issue was that they had the accuracy of ...something. It was just bad. I kid you not, this one group had a legit, 4 foot catapult that they had to pull back with a large rope and stuff. They placed it within 2 feet of the box and missed.

. This is the actual funny part The other thing that happened that day was that the JROTC was (unfortunately for them) standing nearby. One group basically made a large slingshot (it was made of PVC pipes and t came up to my knees) and had a tennis ball as a projectile. Now, my teacher encouraged us to play a prank on them and if we got caught, we had to blame one of the teachers next door to her. So with everyone form my class watching, they aimed the slingshot at the JROTC and shot it.
It flew way up - and missed the closest kid by 10 feet. Embarrassing. Anyways, this got a lot of looks from the JROTC, which they're really not suppose to move while in formation. One of the kids passed the tennis ball back, and so the kids scurried closer (to the alarm of the JROTC) and shot it straight up in the air. It flew up, up, up and crashed straight down in the middle of the JROTC class. That's when the Tearcher, Sargent Blakes (I think, I never had the teacher) started marching towards us, shouting. I don't know what he said because we all scattered and ran back to our classroom. We didn't get in trouble lol

So that was my high school experience

i didnt go to highschool bc i live in england, and we have a different system. but we had secondary school (11-16) - that was fun. i didnt get up to much bc i was a reclusive nerd but

• bc we was a church school, we had church services like twice a semester, where NOBODY would sing the hymns. nobody at all. there was a choir, sometimes a disconnected white man w a guitar, and teachers would sing, but everyone else just stood and glanced at eachother, sometimes mouthing.
• we had these classrooms called porta-cabins, which was 'temporary' cabins around campus bc we didnt have enough room. they was a lawless zone. 13yo girls sold blowjobs for 50p (about a dollar) on rainy days bc they knew the teachers wouldnt check them if it was raining.
• loads of girls had the hots for a male pe teacher, and a few in my year had to write apology letters for sexually harrassing him (oi oi, sir! looking good!)
• any white male teacher under 25 is a Babe Magnet, no matter how ugly. mainly to white girls, i think.
• my sister, when she was 11, got thrown off a school bus by an upperclassman because she kept shouting for people to move, because she was getting crushed. little kids got crushed in the corridors. a guy in my year once ran a girl over, and she died for like 5 minutes. it was so weird.
• the movies are true. prom committee consists of every massive bitch in your year. all at once.
• a guy found our german teacher on grindr and screenshotted the explicit pictures. a girl would mutter 'leathercockstrap' under her breath throughout his lessons.
• we had a crazy art teacher who didnt know the curriculum and just wandered around other art classes making random comments. also, in church services, she threw shapes
• it was a rough, really working class school, but we had a mandarin class. and our mandarin teacher was a super posh white guy from zambia. he was also a complete weirdo, and would chase his students down corridors to practice mandarin with them. girl students hid in toilets
• someone smeared shit on the walls in said toilets
• it was a hovel
• we had a concrete play area called 'the cage' where lots of fights took place, and because of this they banned girls (?????) so tonnes of girls flooded the cage and clung to the fences
• next to the school was a field filled with seagulls. when we had a fire drill they all got up and mobbed us
• every christmas the upperclassmen put on a sketch show taking the piss of all the teachers, which everyone got to skip class to see except the first years
• we had a school beat. it was shit, but EVERYONE did it. everywhere. especially on the windows on the top deck of the school bus
• which had fights EVERY day. there was two drivers, a grumpy lady and a lovely man. if you got the lovely man, the top deck was a lawless wasteland. they burnt it down once.
• some girls in my year, when we was 13, did a ouija board in the toilets. then one of them ran around the whole school saying she was posessed
• mosta our students was nigerian, but mosta our teachers was white. there was one nigerian teacher they used to speak yoruba at during class, and when he responded they all fell apart laughing, no matter what

im gonna stop before it truly dawns on me how shit my school was

Ahhh prison... Um I mean high school...

What a mean cruel nasty place. Because of high school I was taught a lesson on dog eat dog world 101...

Constantly fighting... Fighting died down after I joined military program at 15... ( Philippines had military training that you're required to do from about age 16 to 18 to put it simply... but you can voluntarily join at 15...)

Joined so I learn how to be tough and to get stronger... Cuz I was scrawny kid who had to put up with bullies and all the fag jokes even though I'm not a homosexual... Guess I looked like one /sigh

Anyway the military made me stronger and I learned some hand to hand combat skills... And it was hell constantly fighting people just to get em off my back and to stop bullying me!!!

But when the physical bullying stopped, it became more subtle and verbal... And snickering and dirty looks. Before I knew it, I became that asshole you must avoid... don't look at him... don't talk to him... and especially don't wanna pick a fight with him... Cuz even if you win the fight, you come out of it with at least some bruises and you get to taste your own blood for dessert... Hehehe...

So there. High school to me is like prison where you constantly have to watch your back and look sharp and tough or else you get walked all over by everyone.

But sadly, most people don't mature past high school age... This is why even in the workplace, I am always ready for bullies... /Sigh

I hate fighting and violence... Just had to protect myself. Cuz really I'm a gentle and loving guy... Lol

I'm in the UK, but I actually did go to a high school, because I'm from one of the weird counties that has a completely different school system to the rest of the country. I went to a state Church of England all-girls school that had a wonderful reputation in the community. The head teacher at the time I started was a pillar of the community, and was even made a Dame before she retired. I really didn't want to go there, but my parents didn't let me have a say in it. I hated all four years there, but I did pick up a few anecdotes.

In my first year there, some of the girls thought it would be a great idea to smoke in the classroom at lunch, along with having fun that involved a can of hairspray and a lighter. They threatened to hurt anyone who told the teachers, and the ringleader was much larger than me physically, and I was a bit terrified of her. In the end, a classmate and I discretely arranged a meeting with our teacher and told her, and our class' right to unsupervised lunches was revoked, and they never found out who had told.

At one point there was a craze among some of the students for using hairspray to confuse the smoke detectors and set off the fire alarm. This happened several times a week, all through exam season that year. Someone also managed to set fire to one of the bathrooms in the music department once, by pulling all the toilet paper from the rolls and lighting it, causing quite a lot of damage to that wing of the building.

We went to Wimbledon once as a school trip, and while we were in the very long, very slow queue, a photographer from a popular tabloid spotted some of us because of our very distinctive uniforms (long, pleated navy blue skirts, bright red flat caps) and asked if he could take photographs. We agreed because why not, but when our supervising teacher found out, she panicked that she was going to get into trouble for allowing a sleazy tabloid guy to photograph her precious underage charges and probably Photoshop them inappropriately. (I'm pretty sure we didn't make it into the paper, Photoshopped or otherwise.)

In my final year, we had a student teacher helping in our maths class, and he was quite young and really nerdy, and he really wasn't ready for a classroom full of teenagers. Some of the nastier girls in the class relentlessly sexually harassed him every lesson, until he just stopped coming to work one day. According to the rumours, he had a nervous breakdown and quit teaching.

homophobic cyberbullying and lots of sims 2

that and classmates dying in car accidents every year

looking at all these paragraphs

I got nothing much else XD

The only "crazy adventures" I ever went on were like, anime conventions. I think it was more the people at the top (or at least higher up) of the social hierarchy who went on "adventures", but I had a horrible time socializing at that age.

I WILL say I had a lot of really interesting classmates, especially senior year. One of my best friends was a kid who was 4 years younger but was at such an advanced level we were in the same grade, one was a guy who was constantly doing science experiments at home, another was a guy who idolized Roman generals, etc... The kid who did the science experiments was amazing though. One day he showed up to school with this scar on his hand, and when asked what happened, he just responded matter of factly "Oh. I burned myself with acid." His dad also mentioned they got correspondence from the Department of Homeland Security when the kid tried to buy mercury online. These were the people I wish I'd spent more of my high school life trying to talk to instead of cowering in fear of everyone.

My high school was right next to our city's zoo, and because we were an animal sciences magnet we could get in for free to do classwork.

The funniest thing I can possibly think about is since our zoo has gorillas, one of my friends asked another if he knew the name of the Gorillaz band members. He thought they were talking about the zoo gorillas so he started listing off their names, which were obviously not the names of the band members. He didn't realize it until we pointed it out.

also our chemistry teacher had a habit of saying -5 for any little thing like a real life Snape. I don't think she was ever serious about it but anytime someone did something slightly wrong, everyone around would just shout minus 5.

this might be more situational so its not really something general - when blackfish came out, my animal behavior class went to see a screening of it. after, our teacher had us write letters to seaworld that would express our opinion based on what we saw. a few weeks later, our principal came in and began scolding the people who condemned animal captivity in general - as our school was also supported by the city zoo.

also i got shoved into a makeshift 'yearbook' class because i had an open period where I already took all the available classes for the time & i had already been a TA so i couldn't do it again. said free period was every wednesday iirc? because my schedule shifted so i'd start the following class the next day, and so on. so during the last few weeks of school I drove to buy pizza - in the rain - and had to get my friend's help to sneak in with said pizza.

also i touched a peacock. an actual peacock.

My country has a very different school system, the thing closest to higschool for me would be the age 12 to 15 (you're supposed to go there till you're 17/ 18, but I dropped out when I was 15)

//[Disclaimer] I was a great student, I had some of the best grades and I had lots of friends, I never got in trouble for anything. So no, I didn’t have to drop out, I just wanted to. I couldn't bring up the motivation to wake up and go to school anymore. I wanted to start my future by going to a lower education art school. (It's a dutch thing, called mbo, it's practical and specialized school meant for people who have harder time learning and want to be prepared for working under a boss)//

Even though I hated school, I think my high school experience wasn't that bad overall. I just hated languages, math, geography, science, physics, fine arts, PE, tests, being tired, no exhausted, not seeing use of going there, having to ride my bike 36 km a day through rain and wind and snow and... do I have to go on?

Random fact:

We didn't have a canteen, and I heard that after I dropped out they build one, but they only served vegan meals???

My teachers were weird

• We had a biology teacher that got fired because he smoked weed at school. (He was my favorite teacher )

• And there we had an art teacher that got fired because he was an illegal graffiti artist and tried to get us into it too.

• There was also the German teacher that couldn't really speak our language that learnt us weird German words and let us watch the same movie twice in one year.

• And our PE teacher accidentally used the wrong e-mail adres once, which was HankySpanky something-something. So some of my classmates gave him a whip for his birthday. He sometimes said he'd spank people if they didn't perform well. (He never did spank any students ofcourse!)

• Our Dutch and Geography teacher was a cat lady, and her whole classroom was decorated with cat objects.

• Our science & physics teacher was really bad with fire and burned/ broke over ten ceiling tiles in one year, the principle got really mad over this.

MEMORIES
Our school was being rebuild, and there were a lot of places we weren't allowed to go. But my squad didn't care and we'd always hang at the side staircase. Our squad even called the app-group after that staircase. We'd talk to the people that were working there, we'd draw on the stairs, because the staircase would be removed anyway.

I was basically the only "emo" kid. And teachers were super worried for me, they asked me to show my wrists and asked if I were depressed. Just because I wore black clothes, black eyeliner, dyed my hair black and wore platform boots haha. I never selfharmed, and I was a good student, they based their worries purely on my look. (Cringes when thinking of my V shaped bangs)

There was this transfer student that was "emo" too and I was sooooooo desperate to talk to him. My best friend kind of got me into believing that I had to ask him out, so I talked to him the week before my last week at that school, and went to a concert with him. But he turned out to be gay (Also he really wasn't my type, he smoked and drinked when he was only 15 and he had toxic friends).

And my sad parting: I've been sick for over two months, and after I returned to school, my squad split up, no one of them still talked, and they didn't want to hang anymore. I don't know if it was because of me, or what happened tbh? But I ended up hanging with only one of them... I dropped out after this year and got kind of school famous for being their first drop out. Again, my teachers were all worried sick for me, telling me that it was just a phase that I'd regret it, but honestly, it was the best decision I ever made

HAPPY END

Ah....high school...I hated high school. It's not like people were horrible to me, I just didn't enjoy it. What I did like was my high school was located really close to the center of the city. Because I had taken 8 grades of piano and piano theory, I was able to use that as credit towards graduating high school and didn't have to take as many courses in my last two years. I had a three hour block of no classes every day, so I left and hung out downtown in anime stores or went to the library. The best class was biology because our teacher had a pet boa constrictor named Patra that he would let out during class time. She was an awesome snake and I'd frequently have her hanging out on my arm if we had to partner up during class, which made the annoying, snobby girls leave me alone and I got to hang out with the more interesting people.

Okay, this sounds fun. I'm a freshman in highschool right now, and this all took place in the first few months of my semester.
I go to an art school, and I had to audition, and I met this girl, right?
Her name was lucinda.
She seemed nice enough, so after school started and I realized we had both gotten in, I invited her to join my friend group.
I suppose I should add that I have a very death centric sense of humor, I.e (to the right you will see beautiful mountains native to our coast, above, the gorgeous turquoise sky, and to our right, the ditch where I hide the bodies.)
So I joked about that kind of thing regularly,
oh, and ha,
also, one time I was able to bring a needle onto a plane hidden in a mechanical pencil. I could have probably used it as a shank? I didn't mean to bring it, but I had made it as an experiment, and it got mixed up with my other pencils. Oops.
AAANYWAY,
so I would joke about death, and tell stories like that.
She was pretty badass herself though, like, she had scars from this one time she dove out a window, bragged about sending her brother to the hospital twice, etc, so I thought we would get along great!
But, one day, I kind of just lost my shit.
I had a fever, and I was on my period, but my dad made me go to school anyway.
It all started with the bottle flip game.
I remember thinking about how fucking superficial that thing is... that game. How there is no reward, no point, and no reason.
Then I started expanding that.
I looked at the people who were playing it, and realized that every little god damn thing about them was superficial.
They don't need a god damn snap back hat, why the fuck do they have that why the fuck is that a thing there is no purpose and the psychological need that it somehow manages to address is a broken piece of shit if it allows that to exist.
Then I applied that to school, and jobs, and society, and life, aaaand, I started crying.
I really thought in that moment that we shouldnt exist. I shouldnt exist.
I went to see the counselor, but she did little to console me.
She was pretty much just like "hmm. Yep, seems about right. Don't kill yourself tho"
So I go out to lunch, tear stains black with eyeliner, hair out, and smudged lipstick.
I couldn't give less of a shit at the time. I confronted my friends, particularly my religious ones. I'm an atheist... and, honestly, Religion pisses me off a little bit. Not the religious, I have no problem with people who disagree with me, it's just... ugh, it's frustrating how easy that would be. It'll all be okay, because jesus mother fucking loves me, right?
anyway...
Lucinda was sitting with them, as well as the rest of them, and I went on my little tangent.
I talked about how we shouldn't be here, and how fake everyone is, but one quote I was forced to stick to was "I just want this whole place to fucking burn." I wasn't specifically referring to the school, but that's how it was taken.
Lucinda and my friend Ollie reported me to the principle.
Ollie, because he thought I was going to kill myself, and Lucinda because she thought I was going to kill someone else.
I got suspended for a week, which gave me time to calm down.
I lost my girlfriend right after all that though, so that was it's own god damn fantastic little drama fest.
Once I returned, I had a pretty good hold of myself.
I was able to deduce that Lucinda had been one of the people to report me based on the details of said report, but I was intent on remaining her friend.
I didn't want her to think I was holding a grudge.
We would chase each-other, and hug, and I would link arms when I walked with her.
Eventually, she reported me for that too.
I don't know why, really, haha.
I guess she was still scared, but didn't want to say so for the sake of her whole badass persona.
The principle told me he wanted to meet with me and my parents over the weekend, but my mom ended up going without me. She thought he would be more likely to go back on a decision if I wasn't around.
But, when she got there, a squad car was waiting for me. I know it was for me because the police lady's business card was in my file.
He fucking invited me to the school just to have me fuckign arrested and he is such a manipulative bastard and fodiuag,
anyway.
I was suspended for two weeks, and if I get reported again, I'm going to be expelled. Lucinda and I worked things out in the counselors, and part of it was that she had a lot of traumatic shit happen to her at her old school when it came to violence... a group of girls trapped her between two seats in the bus and beat the shit out of her... she had a broken nose from that, and has lots of scars to prove other fights. Anyway, she still felt like I applied to that environment. We're actually friends now, again, and I doubt she's going to do anything like that again... she didn't know that they would take it that seriously. That's my story, any way, feel free to ask any questions.

My father was an evangelist and pastor until his existential crisis and eventual break with the church, so I attended several different high schools in several different states in the US. I can tell you from experience that they're all about the same. I even attended one private christian school after I was caught and expelled for smoking pot on campus in Colorado. This was in 1988 or 89.

The strangest thing that happened at that school was one of my acquaintances was... um... is it only adults here? He was 'pleasured' by his gf on the bus during a school field trip. We were going down town to do missionary work and the two had become that through the top of the pants kind of intimate on the way there. So, this guy walked around downtown with a flannel shirt wrapped around his waist and buttoned down the front like a skirt because... reasons.

When I was in public school, also in Colorado, my cousin, a friend of his and I ditched class and hitch-hiked 45 miles to Evergreen to see a girl I was dating at the time who was home sick. All three of us ended up sleeping in her closet overnight. It was an interesting experience. My cousin soon started dating her bff shortly thereafter. It kind of sucked because I always liked her bff more. She was very short, and slim, and very quick-witted. If you've ever seen Toradora, that's basically her: a palmtop tiger, but slightly less mean. My gf, Becky, was much more demure.

I personally think her mom knew the whole time we were there. My cousin just would not shut up. Like verbal vomit kind of nervous.

I spent most of my time in Colorado ditching class and going to house parties. Three of the schools I went to there had smoking areas, which was where everything from fights to make-out sessions happened. I literally choked on another gf's tongue there. Her name was Jasmine. She had this giant, incredibly long tongue that she would just stab in there and try to throttle you with. It was... disconcerting, though now I might consider it kinky and exciting, at the time I didn't really want her to reach in and taste what I had for lunch that day.

I did have a gf actually try to kill me during high school. It wasn't at the high school, though. She was borderline personality disorder, so when we fought it was usually about me hanging out with other girls or some other imagined abandonment. She pointed her father's gun at me. It was much like the vaudeville "french lovers" routine, but felt way more serious at the time. The sex was great and we stayed together for almost a year. Every time we'd break up we'd get back together for a night and she'd steal my underwear, or conversely leave hers at my place. It was usually her bra as I had this thing for her "girls." They were middling-big but perfectly shaped, and she had good taste in lingerie. At the time I was all about the men's bikini's so it didn't much matter to me whether I had them or just went commando. It was more the thought that I liked about them than the sensation. I think of her on occasion, though usually only when drawing the naughty bits.

As you can imagine, none of this happened without a liberal supply of liquor, pot and occasional LSD which was my favorite. I quit smoking pot, then quit drinking after my second suicide attempt, but before I dropped out of high school. Tripping at school wasn't really that much fun. It was more like fighting through a cloud just to get to the paranoia.

It was really a friend of mine's suicide that grabbed my attention. Becky, another Becky, not the same one, was a gf of a sort-of friend. Kind of an acquaintance. But Becky and I got along really well. We were never single at the same time. I think her bf's name was Devon, or Devin or something, though I'm not sure. We'd hang out, basically, and I once died her hair plaid at a party. Just one side that she'd shaved pretty tight though. She was a Skate Betty, if you know the term. Kind of emo, but more like a grunge Pinky Pie. I gave her bf his first tattoo in my basement.

Yes, I skated. Yes, I had the Tony Hawk hair. Yes, I know it looked goofy.

Anyway, they'd broken up, and I didn't know. I was busy with my own gf troubles at the time. I was dating Melinda, (raven black, long hair. Smart, sexy, wild, like Jane Russel, but the latina version). She was "maybe pregnant" and I was working as a store manager at a crappy fast food place. (side note: we were actually robbed once) This whole huge long thing happened where we were briefly... not happy, then, basically, she left for California with her real Dad.

So, anyway, when Becky called, I was busy. Frankly, I was busy cheating on Melinda with Melissa (shockingly red hair and great body. When I say great, I mean wow great, and, in my own defense, the red hair and freckles, so totally not my fault) So, when she needed me, I just kind of brushed her off. I used to wonder. It's rare now, but it was really hard to think of her today. She was, I think, the one that got away, you know? And I was just... bad.

I had to edit this to say that what I meant by "the one that got away" was "THE one." Becky is the one I compare all other women to even if I'm not aware of it at the time. She was it for me.

When Becky died it tore me inside out. I had never reached the point before where I just didn't want to feel anything at all, ever again. Even my own brushes with death were more that "screw you, let's see you live without me" kind of juvenile crap. But Becky was so special to me. I know, though, really sad, right? But that happening, it saved my life. I quit everything, and kind of disappeared into me for a while. I stopped having parties at my place. My parents were potheads by that time, and didn't care what happened as long as no one was arrested. I have the ignoble distinction of introducing them to drugs. Yaay me.

Melinda came back from Cali about 6 months later. I'd changed, she'd changed, so it didn't really work out. I didn't really date after that. I grieved for a long time. By the time my head was right high school was just a "thing." Just this place that was, not torture, but, I don't know. It's hard to explain. It was like I didn't belong there. The best way to say it is that I was dirty and they were all clean. I couldn't smile and pretend. It was the isolation of a crowd, I guess. None of them were like me. It was just shockingly, jaggedly absurd.

But anyway, then there was Anna. Anna and I never dated, and we never really had a thing going or anything, but Anna breaks my heart. She basically dated the same guy for the entire time I knew her. She was like dirt poor, and I mean like, trailer park living with her crackhead mom poor. I was dating Melinda at the time and we were like the little clique that always hung out because our relationship status was mostly stable and Melinda was all daggers at any other female I was in close contact with at the time. The girl would literally stalk me. It was great but in a really creepy kind of way. So, the four of us thought we'd go to Anna's grandmother's house and just have some fun. I-can't-remember-his-name had a car at that time, which was odd because he didn't own a car at that time. Stop me when you see where this is going.

So we get up into the mountains, and we pull into what I think is Anna's grandmother's place. Spoiler: not really grandma's place. Big surprise. Melinda and I are all mussing the sheets in the guest bedroom, and the cops break in. The next thing I know we're all in handcuffs in separate cars, and I-can't-remember-his-name is all, "Oh man, I am so f**ked!" and I'm all "Really? That's all you can say?"

Btw, this was coincidentally just before Melinda took off with her Dad to Cali. I wonder why. And, Anna, not to make it sad again or anything, had a child by I-can't-remember-his-name who was in jail at the time. Anna was/is the reason I first considered emotionally that abortion be not only legal but easily obtainable by all without any notice or consent of the father of the child. Anna was sweet, but stupid (not dumb, just stupid in the way that women always return to their abusers kind of stupid) and she didn't deserve her mom or poverty or that... person. It would be an abuse of the term to say that I loved her, but she was my friend. She didn't deserve that.

Then there was the time all four of us snuck into some random person's hot tub. What?! The lights were off and everything! We ran, soaking wet and clutching our clothes while some old guy was just screaming at us. Melinda's just laughing her head off and Anna's going, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!"

Aww man, good times.

We had a faux fencing duel in a cemetery once. This blonde wisp, I can't remember her name (and no I didn't sleep with her), her parents fenced, so we thought, being idiots, we'd steal a couple "swords" and have a play fight in the cemetery like we were fighting off evil or whatever. Was great until the cops came. We all got away though.

I can't remember any other ones that were really bad. Oh, the rehearsal party after some random person's wedding. I think I was friends with the bride's brother or something? I can't remember. I think I was dating (name removed) at the time? Total emo goth chick. Like, the whole cool hair and aunk eyeliner thing. Think of Robert Smith but with breasts. She actually wrote me a love letter in her own blood. Not kidding! She was spectacularly bad in bed. Actually, saying that, I think I'll just go delete her name now. So, we're making out in this back room and she's all, "hate me, hate me" and this couple just barges in and just starts going at it. It's the closest I've ever come to group sex, and also the furthest away I ever wanted group sex to be. It was kind of like watching gorillas on a nature show. Like, wait, that doesn't go there! And (name removed) is like WTF?! and all waaaay turned off by now so we went back to the party and just let them have the room. That was the night I became so wasted that I slept on a bus line bench. Thankfully no one threw change at me or anything.

Actually, overall, I laugh about it, but high school really sucked. I don't want to be the guy that boasts about his regrets, but that's pretty much it. My parents had disappeared into their own miasma. It was ironically the loneliest time of my life. When I look back, I never think about the fun times, but just the time I wasted playing grown up games with a boy's mind.

I know this sounds really weird after all that, but I've always been kind of nerdy. Not like glasses-guy kind of nerdy, but like quiet, intense poet kind of nerdy. I was an atheist and pseudo armchair anthropologist long before my father ever left the church. Most people I met didn't know what the hell I was talking about when I spoke of books and ideas. For a long time I just stopped. It was easier than being ostracized for being too smart. And if that doesn't sound egotistical, I don't know what will. I was a "freak" who blended with several different subcultures, looking for something that was quite a lot like me.