The DU Lounge: Too often, it's not a very friendly place. [View All]

[Skinner]

Let me tell you about my experience in Junior High School.

I went to public school for elementary school and high school, but for junior high, I went to a fancy-pants private school, where most of my classmates were the spoiled children of the local elite. They all knew each other because they all went to the same country clubs and debutante balls or infant finishing schools or whatever the fuck they did.

I wasn't poor or underprivileged in any way, but I could tell in my gut that that I was part of a different social class. They wore those wide-wale preppy corduroy pants, and all I had were those thin-wale corduroys that were cut like a pair of blue jeans. They all wore top-siders, and I had those clunky suede things from "Bass" or some other off-brand. Their polo shirts -- and all their other clothes -- actually had a little polo player on the pocket. My shirts were a little too tight, usually with green stripes or something, and if they had anything on the pocket it was a penguin.

What was worse is that I didn't play sports. I was clumsy and awkward. I was much better at things like singing and drawing, which were really faggy things for junior high school boys to do. While the other kids were having coed parties where they played "Synchonicity" over and over again and dimmed the lights and groped each other, my little group of friends (all boys) were somewhere else playing computer games.

There were cool people, and there were geeks. The cool kids would all sit at the same tables at lunch, where their only interaction with the rest of us was to hurl an insult or stick out a leg to trip one of us as we walked by with a tray full of food.

It was cruel and it was juvenile and it was complete fucking bullshit.

And right now the DU Lounge doesn't look very different to me.

Congratulations, beautiful people. You're at the top of the Lounge pecking order. When any of the great unwashed tries to sit at your lunch table, you'd never just come right out and tell them how much contempt you have for them (and besides, the teacher wouldn't allow that). You'd rather be really clever about it -- make a snide comment or pass around a clever picture. Quietly, you high-five each other underneath the lunch table. "LOL. Good one. Snicker."

I think it's fucking disgusting, and I think you should all be ashamed.

"But, but... It's their own fault," you say. "If they weren't so annoying, then I wouldn't have to constantly remind them that they are not part of the cool crowd."

Or else, if a teacher asks you about it, you just deny it. "I don't really like him, but we don't really have any problems." (Sound familiar, anyone?)

By the time I left Junior High School, I figured out how to climb to the top of the social order, and I am deeply ashamed about it to this day. Let me tell you what I did, because I wanted so badly to be part of the in crowd. I picked on the kid who stuttered.

That's right. I picked on the kid who stuttered.

To be more precise, I mimicked his stutter. I was able to copy his stutter exactly. And I would do it right to his face. I actually made him cry one time. The cool kids thought it was a fucking laugh-riot.

Deep inside, I was deeply, deeply ashamed. And to this day, I would give my left nut to take it all back.

That is all.