The New Kid

Having attended ten different schools during my K-12 years, I was in effect the perpetual 'new kid'. While this probably had a psychologically damaging and damning effect, it did give a certain objectivity to my perspective of the whole public school experience. Patterns began to emerge between the schools I attended. Some of these I will share with you now. Raise your hand if these apply to you too:

1) In every school there will be one, and only one, kid named 'Boner'. How Boner got his name will vary between two distinct possibilitites:

i) 'Boner' is really a shortening of his name, as was the case with Benjamin Boden -or-
ii) 'Boner' is a earned - it's sacred observance and reminder of events passed, as was the case with Jeremy Schumaker. Jeremy had, apparently (and this is second hand info as I was not present), last year gotten a huge boner during a dodge ball game in PE that wouldn't go away. I guess it was noticible. People on the other side of the gym noticed at any rate, and proceeded to not only try to cream Jeremy with the dodge balls, but also try to hit him where it counts. When people on Jeremy's own team started chasing him and trying to peg him as well the coach had to stop the game and send Jeremy out. You can see by playground logic how Jeremy would now need to be called 'Boner' for the rest of his natural born life. He earned it. I'm sure that Jeremy is sitting in his therapists office right now, chewing on his hair and talking to a plant, but the fact remains that he did indeed have a boner.

2) In every school they have a giant parachute sitting in some janitor's closet which smells like moth balls and that you have to play with in the gymnasium, as a class, at least once a year. *Shwoop* it goes up, or *Floop* it goes down and makes the parachute thingee - otherwise you're just walking around in circles, all holding on to it and marching in time to Abba's greatest hits. It's often called 'the circle of the damned' too, because they've got your ass for the next 55 minutes. There are only two fun things to do when you have to play the parachute game, and they are:

i) Do the opposite of what the teacher tells you (sit on the inside of the parachute when she says to sit and hold it on the outside! Ha HA!!)
ii) Get together with a couple friends and use your collective might to try to whisk the parachute up in the air so fast that it starts to make a snapping sound at the top and potentially lifts some of the lighter kids off the ground during the upshot.

The more important question is why kids are made to participate in this ridiculous ritual in the first place. I've heard that it's supposed to promote a certain kind of coordinated teamwork, which is why you get in trouble for sitting in the wrong spot, but even accepting that explanation I'm not sure it's entirely necessary. Have you ever seen the complex coordination involved with four guys sitting behind the school cafeteria passing a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 around between three of them while the fourth acts as a look out not only for the 'playground attendant' but also for that stupid fuck on the lawnmower who ratted you out last week - and then seamlessly rotates back in for his swig while someone else takes lookout? That's coordination. That's teamwork.

3) In every school, the school nurse is a beastly woman from a former Soviet country who has no interest in your name, health, or well-being. Yadviga (Yadviga to her friend(s)) has had no formal medical training unless you count hauling bodies off of the battle field circa WWII, and has exactly three things to offer your sorry ass:
i) Band Aids. Not by choice. The school district insists on them.
ii) A table with a sheet draped across it with a bowl sitting at one end, partly shielded by what looks like dirty bed linens strung up around it. She may in fact be multi-tasking and drying her laundry, who knows. She will not be cleaning up after you if you puke, either.
iii) Unwanted observations and advice, i.e. 'Een my kontree, sahmtimes vee haff no food. To vomit zo eazily eez such a wayst.'

One time I was in such pain from eating the school lunch that I could barely stand upright. I went to see the nurse who pinched my cheek (seriously!) and said 'You luke fine to me. Go.' So I decided to leave school AMA, and got assigned a day of Saturday school for my budding self-diagnosis skills. It was the first and last time I ever went to Saturday school, as it was really boring (not like The Breakfast Club at all), and I learned that if by chance you did NOT show up to Saturday school, then you would in fact be suspended from school on the following Monday. Let's see, six day week, four day week, six day week, four day week... Even public school kids can work this one out. . .