Facebook Money Savings

Thank you Facebook for saving me hundreds of dollars on the travel costs for my high school reunion that I no longer need to attend. Everything I want to know I can find out from the comfort of my padded leather office chair. The weight gain, the homely children, the crows feet, the receding hairlines, the obvious breast augmentations that will be categorically denied, the dead-end jobs, the aborted degrees, the dashed childhood aspirations, the disciples of Elizabeth Taylor, the high school romances that imploded in college; the high school hook-ups that resulted in wedlock and legitimate births in adulthood, the realization that what comes around goes around is a myth, the relief that good things do happen to good people, the fantastic dye jobs, the successful careers in helping professions, the obnoxious vacations, the detailed accounts of grocery lists and dinner menus, the amazingly talented kids who speak Chinese, Spanish, win chess tournaments and lead their team in soccer goals (oh yeah, those are my kids, but there are probably other talented and accomplished children as well), and, then of course, all the shockingly reactive political opinions on healthcare and immigration from conservative parents, who were once horny, aimless teenagers whose only concerns were hanging out at the local mini-mart, hooking-up with upperclassman and going to beer parties on the cliffs after Friday night football games.

Oh, how times have changed, but really not that much. The past is just one mouse click and thousands of miles away--precisely where it should remain.

Bully Interrupted

Word got out quickly and the email was brief: "G.W. was killed in a motorcycle accident."

Reply: "I feel sorry for his mother's loss." Send.

That should have been the end of it. A polite condolence for the passing of my former classmate. We were not friends. I knew nothing about his family life. We did not talk about our hopes and fears. He never told me if he won or lost his wrestling matches. We never chatted about applying for college, going to prom, or if Julia Roberts made a convincing prostitute.

But the end has not come. Intermittent bouts of grief have continued for five years as I reflect upon a relationship far more complex than friendship and far more important than a romance. His words are still present with me: "You’re a virgin because no one wants to touch you. Not because you’re good," his goading continued, "I bet you have never been kissed." Staring at the fainted pencil doodles on the desk (mostly penned by me) and twisting my frizzy, Sun In and Aqua Net infused hair, I thought “fuck off,” but said nothing.

The intensity of my hair twisting increased with my level of embarrassment. I wrapped my hair six or seven times around my left index finger and jerked it repeatedly over my left eye. “You’re an ugly freak,” he said. “Maybe so, but I will get out of this shithole. You, however, will die here,” I never had the courage to say that to him. Instead, I stayed mute and escaped into my dreams of heading to New York to take over the astrology and supernatural beat at the Natural Inquirer after a four-year stint at a quaint private liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania.

G.W.’s taunts went on for years. Given the uninspired alphabetical seating chart used in homeroom, G.W. always sat in front of me. After the Pledge of Allegiance but typically before roll call, he would turn about 60 degrees left and glare at me with his hazel eyes protected by long, curly eyelashes—not suited for a bully. He slightly tilted his chin upward, showing his jawline that curved like the Appalachian Mountains, the landscape of our childhood. He then placed his right hand onto my left arm twisting my skin until his fingers were imprinted on me like a pink and white x-ray under tacky florescent lighting. This was just one of the ways that he let me know he was there, thinking about me. G.W. took pride in his role as a bully and picked on many kids – boy, girl, fat, skinny, tall, short, smart, dumb, shy, or obnoxious— but among all his targets, I was his favorite.

A large sinister laugh with a touch of naiveté always followed his taunting. Even at his most cruel, a playful innocence underpinned his voice letting me know that he picked on me because I could handle it, and I always suspected that he would never harass the truly weak or helpless. I liked having his sole attention when he was pinching my arm, bending my fingers, or calling me an “ugly bitch.” We needed each other. Picking on me made him look cool and funny. He was a boy who talked me. I think I even had a crush on him for a day or two, a few months before graduation, perhaps in April or May of 1991. I later concluded he was an asshole and moved on.

Certainly not an innovative bully, G.W. acted more menacing than violent. His attacks were no different than those implemented by any other bully in any other school. I never told; our teachers rarely noticed; and, classmates watched in amusement -- wishing they could be like him while giving thanks that were not me. This was long before the days of no tolerance policies and immediate expulsions for minor bullying infractions. Statistics show that targets of bullies often have low self-esteem and perform poorly in school; the teasing was just part of my high school experience and didn’t have much impact on my daily activities.

If you have ever listened to any John Cougar Mellencamp cassette twice, you know our story. We lived in a small town where everyone (with the exception of a few adopted kids) was white and everybody’s parents made about the same amount of money (with the exception of a few business owners). The only thing that separated G.W. and me were our class choices. I was college-bound, and he was not. So, we were from two different academic worlds, which meant after about 10 minutes of abuse in homeroom, we would separate and did not see each other again until the next morning.

Our limited contact makes our story pretty uneventful. There are no twists and turns. This is not a modern retelling of David and Goliath. This isn’t one of those sappy afterschool specials where the beaten-down but yet spunky and resourceful victim outwits the bully, showing him the error of his ways while simultaneously winning respect from classmates and the heart of the high school quarterback who always secretly loved her but wasn’t brave enough to battle peer pressure.

Nor is this a tale of high school revolution that results in equality for all geeks, weirdoes, and freaks, thus ending all tyranny for future generations of misfits. Yes, I wanted to be the Norma Rae or Ronald Reagan of the high school experience, but this was high school not a factory in the South or a Communist country. Sure, I wanted to be that individualist that stood on the tables and shouted, “Ugly people have feelings too. Ugly people have feelings too.” But the institutions of popularity and beauty can never be penetrated, and venerated bullies wield far more power than abusive factory bosses or Communist leaders. If you have survived the high school experience, you know (you just repressed it along with bad teenage sexual encounters and frightening bouts of underage alcohol poisoning).

Nor is our story a tale of unexpected romance. We never hooked up as teenagers, and didn’t get married as adults. We graduated and never again were in the same alphabetical line-up.

I only saw G.W. one time after graduation. I was working for a small local newspaper during my sophomore year of college. It wasn’t the supernatural beat for the National Inquirer, but on that day, I was covering something just as preposterous – high school football. I was in need of football player quotes, so I went to the place where any well-respected, small town reporter would go to chase a story – the local mini-mart on Main Street. The coach of our high school football team was going for his 100th win, and it would be coincidentally against the school’s biggest rival. The coach was far too modest to give me any real quotes worth printing. He said something about those records being silly and not keeping track of his wins (but oddly, he knew exactly why I was calling before the phrase “100th win” came out of my mouth).

While he hung out with a few high school kids right outside the storefront, G.W. spotted me in the parking lot and yelled: “Why are you dressed up? What are doing you?”

“Writing a story about Coach H.,” I said as I approached him.

“You a reporter,” he said.

“Yeah,” said I.

I then turned to a close friend’s little brother who was on the football team and asked for his thoughts on the coach’s upcoming milestone. Peter wouldn’t give me a quote. He said, Coach H. would make him run miles and sit him out if he talked to a reporter. That’s when G.W. showed that he still had school spirit at the age of 20, and as former football player, he gave me a few printable lines. Ignoring journalistic ethics, I changed his quotes slightly to make him appear articulate and knowledgeable about Blue Devil football. I think I used the phrase “striving for excellence” somewhere in the story.

Other than getting my quotes, I don’t remember much of our actual exchange. It was quite unremarkable. Most of my encounters with G.W. were unremarkable, so I hesitate to recall too many incidents because I don’t want to confuse his actions with those of other bullies that I encountered, stories I have read, or Molly Ringwald movies that I have seen.

Really the story is that the story ended too soon for G.W. – before he became a parent. Before he had to answer the question: “Dad, what were you like in school?” That is the moment when you have to face who you were, what you are now, and what you aspire your children to be. It’s in the next generation when bullying issues surface. Parents must bully proof their children, making sure they are not bullied and that they do not bully others. How you answer your child’s question means everything.

After my son, who was in second grade at the time, got grounded from his computer for intentionally ignoring a classmate at the school’s pancake breakfast. He said, “I don’t like that kid. Weren’t there kids in school that you didn’t like?”

I kneeled down to be eye-level to him and said, “Yes, there were many people I didn’t like. But, many people treated me like you just treated that little boy. They ignored me and pretended like I didn’t exist. And when they didn’t ignore me, they made fun of me, sometimes behind my back but mostly to my face while others watched and laughed. You will not do that. You will be nice to everyone. If you are not, there will be consequences.” That was my answer.

I don’t know how G.W. would have answered. Statistics show that most high school bullies go on to be adult bullies at work and at home. Many bullies abuse their spouses and children. Some end up in prison, and a good portion raise their kids to be bullies. I’ll never know what G.W.’s story could have been. If I wrote the ending, G.W. would have been loving father who raised his kids to be kind to others. And of course, my kid kicks his kid’s ass – in a game of chess.

Advice for the Young: Don’t Write Stupid Shit in Your High School Yearbook

Author’s Note: I have changed some of the names and the details that wrote in my yearbook because I don’t want rehash all the trouble I caused in 1991.

“Hey, what are tangible men?”, asked my husband as he came up the stairs.

“What kind of non sequitur crap is that? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You wrote that you like tangible men,” he said.

“Oh, dear God. They found my high school yearbook,” I said to myself.

I responded, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Bring up her yearbook,” my husband yelled to my oldest son.

Oh the horror. The big hair. The dark make-up. Tons of jewelry. Silly candid photos of me twirling my baton. The picture that immortalizes me as the Most Gullible girl. A sappy dedication from my mother, and my dreadful entry in the section called Senior Directories: Information Concerning the 1991 graduates.

The concept behind the section is a good one: Give graduates a spot to provide contact information (no email in those days, just physical addresses); list school activities; and reflect on their likes and dislikes. If done correctly, this section could accurately reflect a moment in time. Show what was important to students and what trends were occurring? The well-written entries could reveal how you, your values, and what you value have changed or remained the same after graduation.

Or, you could do what I did and fill your space with a lot of inside jokes that were either so obscure no one knew what you were talking about at the time or so unimportant you can't remember the sentiment behind the words 18 years later.

Now that I got you curious. I'll take a huge leap of faith that embarrassment won’t kill me and share the entire cringe-worthy list with you:

Likes:
· family and friends (Wrote that because everyone else did.)
· “IN” (Not a preposition, but the boy that I had a crush on at the time.)
· 7-4-89 (The date of my first kiss with "IN." Sentimental Crap. Get a life!)
· Destiny in the rain (Also connected to the first kiss. So, pathetic.)
· Maryland construction workers (Guess it meant something to me at the time.)
· M.R.’s and lollipops (Exceptionally obscure inside joke that still makes me laugh.)
· Tangible men (Your guess is as good as mine.)

Dislikes:
· Jugglers (Huge mistake. IN’s girlfriend. This comment made all hell break loose.)
· Mashed potatoes (Truly astonishing that I did go on to earn a few degrees.)
· Highway breakdowns (Reasonable.)
· Intangible men (Other side of the indiscernible coin.)
· Calculus confusion (Captures the challenges of 12th grade math, not bad.)

The inclusion of my likes are not worthy of analysis but two of my omissions bother me: Prince and writing. If I would have included them, these would have reflected the things that I have held onto since my childhood. I can attribute the Prince omission to his release of Graffiti Bridge in 1991, which was the start of his commercial decline. So, my affection may have waned for a year and two. But, no excuse exists for not listing writing. Because I was trying to be so clever in the writing of my likes and dislikes, I simply forgot to mention it.

So after 18 years, my dislike for mashed potatoes and highway breakdowns still rings true.

Mashed potatoes. That is what I picked to emphasize. From what I remember and from what people tell me, I was a smart girl in my teens. I could have wrote that I disliked world hunger, war (Gulf War started in 1991), child abusers; skin-heads, censorship and people who don’t respect the First Amendment. Anything that would have indicated to my children almost twenty-years later that I had a brain then and I used it. 

But between my clueless facial expressions and dumb comments, there is no evidence of the existence of my brain in high school. So when I look at the cover of the yearbook and it asks: Remember When?

I respond, “No, thank you. I rather not.”

The Food Chain Cafeteria Style

Anyone who says the United States of America does not have a caste system has never stepped foot in a high school cafeteria.