9:21 pmHigh School Debriefing
I think the teenage years are the years when you are most often taken into strict confidences. These are the years when you, and all of your peers around you, are making pivotal, life changing choices. And because at 16 you are—to use a Britney Spears line—“not a girl, not yet a woman”, most teenagers need some helpful insight and advice from other experienced, seasoned, and hopefully wise people around them…ideally someone from the junior or senior class. At the time, these most-excellent-secrets, and pinky-promises, and cross-your-hearts seem like the most paramount decisions of one’s life, and in a sense they are. I won’t trivialize anything that happens during the teen years; my worst heartbreak to date occurred in 11th grade. But my heart and conscience have been heavy all these years, carrying around the secrets and privileged information of so many people (including some secrets of my own). I have to think that there is a point at which all of these things can come out, without any threat of suffering or torment to any of the parties involved. So here I sit, 13 years after high school graduation, and I’m putting it out there, folks. I’m letting it all go to dissipate into the universe.
Kevin: When you asked Jess to prom and she said that someone already asked her, she was totally lying. She was waiting for Jason to ask her…and she thought you had a skinny head.
Carrie’s mom: When Carrie and I were supposed to be filling out and returning all of those job applications, we were really shoving them in the back of a kitchen drawer that you never looked in.
Tara’s parents: When Tara said that she was spending the night at my house and then you called to talk to her and I said that Tara just went to the store for a minute to get us Dr. Peppers…Tara
Camp counselors: Cris and I did run through the woods in our underwear, we did T.P. cabins and cars, and we did jimmy-rig a blow-torch with matches and a can of Aqua Net… but we maintain that we DID NOT put bananas up anyone’s tailpipe.
Mom: That same year at camp I shaved my legs and hoped you wouldn’t notice. You didn’t.
Cris’s parents: Cris and I drove the car down the road to the bridge and back when you weren’t home, but we couldn’t figure out how to get it out of first gear, so we may have contributed to some transmission damage.
Amy: Kevin made out with the other Amy at Joel’s party. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, and that other Amy was such a skank.
Manager at McDonalds: Many Saturday nights when I was closing, I said I cleaned the shake machine when I didn’t. Oh, and the drive-thru window was kind of broken because I had to climb through it one night after I locked myself out of the drive-thru room…during a huge water battle with the guys in the grill section.
Jeff: I lied. You did make an ass of yourself and you threw up in Angie’s bushes.
There. Ahhhhh…. My heart and mind feel lighter already. If you are one of the people mentioned above and you are experiencing suffering or torment from this new-found knowledge—I would kindly advise you to get over it. Sulking is so 1992.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
