What you have to understand is that I hated high school. Sure, as a teacher’s kid I was basically guaranteed an easy ride, but high school is a battlefield complete with land mines of clichéd self doubt and cliquish loathing. When I left high school I had a 3.95 GPA, I was goal oriented and ambitious, and I had plans and dreams and fantastically high hopes for my future. Unfortunately, and unknown me at that time, I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of actually succeeding in college (a very long story that I’m not going to share with you…EVER). Let’s just say that my educational short comings were quick to reveal themselves.
So how can I describe my high school to you, my intrepid reader? Constructed rather like a rabbit warren, my high school was a sprawling web of color-coded hallways. Yes, you read that correctly…color-coded hallways. The school board, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the students who would attend my high school would be too stupid to remember that their lit class was on the English/Literature hallway so they painted a purple stripe on both the walls and called it…prepare yourself for some impending genius…“The Purple Hall.” History was red, math and languages were orange, science was yellow, computers and shop were green, drafting was pink, and occupational classes were light blue. Interestingly enough, the band and chorus rooms were located on “The Band Hall”…I guess they had run out of colors by then. The contractor had decided to cut corners and improve the budget by leaving out the soundproof gasket between the gymnasium and rest of the school…meaning that by my senior year (when the building was only 10 years old) there were huge cracks in the walls all around the gym. The plumbing never functioned properly because the school was built on reclaimed swamp land. There was a marsh on the property just behind the baseball field which meant that the place was always over run with mosquitoes…a little malaria with your algebra today, class? When the fire alarm went off all the doors would automatically slam shut and lock…this included the exit doors. Of course, the device which triggered the automatic reaction was faulty and one well placed hit to the small metal box attached to the door frame could close every door in the place. And (yes, I know you aren’t supposed to start a sentence with AND) don’t even get me started on individual classmates or this post would NEVER end!
The long and short of this issue is really about the people with whom I attended high school. To put it simply, I didn’t like them then so why would I like them now? I honestly don’t care what they have done with their lives or made out of themselves. I don’t care who they married, how many children they have, or where they are living. The people who I liked/cared about I am still in contact with, but that list is short and exclusive. The few times that I have encountered someone I went to high school with in a random, public place (like the local Wal-Mart) the reaction has usually been one of “OH, you’re a memory from when my life didn’t suck!! I had such a great life back then!! I hadn’t made all these horrible mistakes!!! Hurray!! We should totally hang out!!!” To be quite frank, that is not what I want to be reduced to for those people.
Do you remember a series of car commercial from several years ago where the person’s past self had popped into the future to see what they had become? One of them involved a mom unloading grocery from her vehicle when her high school self walks up to her and taunts her about driving a minivan. I have the eerie sensation that the reunion would be a very similar situation.
The person I am today would not recognize the girl I was in high school. We are ten years and worlds apart from each other.
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