I don’t recall why the Gifted / Talented program at my high school encouraged us giftards to have a Toga Day. That’s how we all ended up outside the principal’s office a month or so before graduation wrapped up in bedsheets. She let us wait and wonder what was in store for us for at least 45 minutes.
The prank mastermind was a strange hybrid of a girl, an athlete with high IQ scores and actual social skills. The rest of the geeks didn’t hang out with her much since she did dangerous things like go outside.
While we were sweating in our sheets outside the principal’s office Danger Girl said, “What’s the Senior Prank going to be? I had this idea we could sell the school.” Than we were all her minions.
The prank turned out very well: in fact the Head principal applauded us at graduation for the ad in the paper (“200 room house for sale, tennis courts, gym”) and the neighborhood real estate signs we planted on the school lawn. Especially since a rival school’s seniors had slashed thousands of dollars worth of bus tires as their farewell. It was a legendary prank.
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A year or so out of high school, I went to the local Dairy Queen and caught up with a boy one year behind me. Come to find out, in the past year:
- The Latin teacher officially did not get our classmate pregnant, but he did go ahead and marry her anyway. (We didn’t know anything about statutory rape back then. We probably felt this was very noble and unselfish of the Latin teacher.)
- The most recent senior class had a tragedy while executing their prank. They had a dump truck full of sand so they could cover the teacher’s parking lot. The way I heard the story, Kid 1 was sitting on the sand pile in the dump truck, and Kid 2 was driving. Kid 1 fell off, and Kid 2 ran over him with the dump truck. Kid 2 had no idea his friend was dead, he just kept going. I think they might have canceled graduation; I don’t know.
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The reason I thought of this after all these years? Kid 2 is now in politics and his political opponent is using the accident against him. Weird how you never think you’ll be 45 when you’re in high school.
7 responses to “High School Fallout”
I’m sure I had a couple of classmates who probably ended up in the Darwin Awards, or should have. Yikes. What a thing to have to live with for the rest of your life! Poor Norval.
Someone posted a bunch of pictures of me from high school…needless to say I was NOT happy. The ones from college weren’t much better either!
Wow.
But what’s become of Danger Girl? I hope she’s achieved nothing that’s made you die a little inside.
Hi, QM of S!Your post reminded me of a cool prank that happened while I was a sophomore. Alas, I can’t say I was involved in it. Just a watcher. A senior running for student body president marshaled a group of fellow prankers and covered the billboard across the street from the school with an advertisement for his presidential campaign. The school immediately disqualified him from the election, and there may have been other consequences, like suspension or whatever (too far back now for me to remember all the details). I do wonder now if this candidate may have put his name into the ring simply to do the billboard, since he was a notorious pranker. We all thought at that time that the bragging rights were worth a lot more than actually being elected president. And actually I still think that now. Love your blog.–VinceP.S. I’m commenting also to tell you that I borrowed a photo from your blog (the King-Tut-and-girl-kissing one from 28 Sept ’06). I wasn’t sure how to give credit since you said that it wasn’t you in the pic. But anyway, I gave your blog a rave recommendation to my readers. Check it out: http://vincegotera.blogspot.com/2009/01/dragonfly-pages-4-5.html
“Weird how you never think you’ll be 45 when you’re in high school.”Yes, I imagine that most think 18 or 19 is the max to be when you are in high school.
Becs – Becs, you are the best writer I have ever read. Everyone should visit http://becsagain.blogspot.com .75 – Strangely, I’m always impressed with photos of me from high school. You need to get some perspective, young lady.Autumn – Yeah.Big Dot – I bet I could find out, and I really don’t want to. She topped it all off by being really nice. Vince – (Hi Vince!) I have no recall what legitimate website that picture came from, and I can’t find it again now. Then again, why should I be concerned about plagarism; it’s not like you’re the editor of the North American Review or something …Zayrina – I think I remember considering in high school where I’d be in 2000. In a suburb with two teenage boys. “Ew” I thought and then I stopped thinking about it.