I consider myself to have been a relatively good teenager. I really didn’t go through much of an external “rebellious” phase. I got caught smoking cigarettes in middle school, which was exciting, but I can’t really think of any other times in my childhood where I was really in trouble for more than an hour or two, or where I had that “I hate you” and slam the door moment with my parents that we see in so many sitcoms. Actually my mother was more likely to do that to us then me to her. So when I look back at some of the things that I could have gotten in trouble for had I been caught, I realize I was lot luckier than I was good.
One very good example of this would be the number of times that I skipped school. Once I hit high school, I skipped out early fairly often. Considering the amount of security our school had, metal detectors, security guards, X-ray machines for backpacks and an onsite police officer, this was quite a feat and usually involved some manner of trickery. I knew a guy that could manufacture a pretty decent fake schedule, which turned my sophomore self into a senior with a morning only class schedule.
This came in handy especially when one of my friends and I began discussing how wrong it was to make us go to school on December 23rd. I mean seriously, we were just sitting in class doing absolutely nothing, why did we need to be there? So, we devised and executed a plan to get the hell out of there. The plan went like this, at lunch time, we walked out the front door like we weren’t scared, and nobody questioned us. It was that easy, plus it was December 23rd, seriously no one cared.
We took the 30 bus down to Wisconsin and M, hopped off and loitered in Barnes and Noble for a long time, somewhere around two to three hours. Long enough for people to think we worked there, long enough for us to know the answers to the questions they asked. “Where’s that new book about toddlers that eat their eyelashes?” “Oh it’s right here, sir”, that sort of thing.
I was a level of pretentious that is hard to believe at that time as well, like pulled out my own copy of “Of Mice and Men” and read it in the bookstore level of pretentious. I was always a voracious reader, but it was sophomore year that I decided I was going to be a writer, and to do so I needed to get down to reading important books and not just the latest horror novels like I had been for the past few years. So King and Koontz were replaced by Salinger and Steinbeck.
Believe it or not, one of our teachers, a favorite of ours, younger guy that taught physics actually walked by us at some point. “Why aren’t you guys in school?” He stopped and asked.
“It’s Christmas Eve, Eve man!” My friend said, gesticulating wildly.
“OK,” he said, not impressed. “But there’s school, today.”
“Then why aren’t you there?” I asked, my penchant for smart-assery boiling up.
“Touché,” he said. “I’ll see you guys next year.”
As he walked away my friend said, “I love Christmas.”
Fondness for Memory 