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penfieldMost people know that I loved my high school experience. For most people, grades 9-12 are an exercise in impatience and frustration. For me, it was like a four-year summer camp, without the mosquitoes. I had a blast. It would be a lie to say that I was popular per se, but I had the right connections and the tough guys generally left me alone.
I still feel a strong connection to my old high school, not only through the relationships that I still maintain with old friends but in fond memories and sentiments. That's why I am particularly grateful to whomever it is that founded the Webster Alumni Page, a repository of names that would otherwise evaporate from my brain.
That said, there are still some names from high school that boil my blood, One of these individuals -- we'll call him "Rat Crapfield," -- was, simply, the most egregious and arrogant phony I have ever met. He walked the school hallways like he owned the place, despite the fact that he had no apparent physical, intellectual or artistic talents. He existed like a barnacle on the outer hull of popularity, under the surface, invisible but ubiquitous. He was not funny but he liked to laugh at people. In front of teachers he would act smarter than he really was. In front of other students he would act dumber than he really was. And he was always a total dick to me, probably because I was perceptive enough to see through his vainglorious facade and recognize the sad, insecure, soulless turd he really was.
So I was surprised to find an e-mail from Rat in my inbox this past weekend. With strange curiosity I opened the e-mail to find that it was an Evite to a political fundraiser for a former Webster High School science teacher who is now running for office as a Monroe County Legislator.
This teacher -- let's call him "Dr. Jerkface," -- never had the pleasure of instructing me in one of his classes. But I did interact with him on a number of occasions and found him to be a smug and self-absorbed attention whore with no sense of humor -- unless he was laughing at one of his own jokes.
I can remember one particularly annoying episode. One morning, me and my girlfriend at the time had a fight on the drive to school. I can't remember what the fight was about -- it might have been that time she surprised me with her new hair color and I responded with what by all accounts was a substandard level of enthusiasm -- but she was steamed. She must have been shivering with passionate hatred for me when she went into her first period biology class with Dr. Jerkface, because the following period when I went to the A/V room to do the morning announcements, he cornered me and chewed me out for causing a disturbance in his class. It was the closest I ever came to putting one of my teachers in a headlock and delivering a series of punches to his kidneys. And I could have done it, too, because Dr. Jerkface is and was about the size of my right thigh.
So anyway, there I was, staring at this Evitation, sent by a person I hate on behalf of another person I strongly dislike, and the blank RSVP form is inviting me to say something really incisive and insulting, to vent not only my personal distaste for these individuals but my irritation at being reminded of these distasteful adolescent anecdotes, and my incredulity at his offensive presumption that he could cut-and-paste the e-mail addresses from the Webster Alumni Page and repurpose them for his cute little Political Action Committee.
(Is that legal, by the way? I intend to contact the Webster Alumni Page Webmaster and urge him to put some sort of disclaimer on the front page that addresses are not to be used for solicitation or other such purposes. Or maybe perhaps he could send Mr. Crapfield a strongly worded letter. It would be fine by me if the Webmaster hired someone to smack him around. That is a cause to which I wouldn't mind contributing.)
I stared at the blank RSVP space for several minutes, trying to come up with the right combination of sarcastic and righteous, before I gave up. I simply selected "No" and erased the e-mail forever.
If only I could do the same to Rat Crapfield himself.
I still feel a strong connection to my old high school, not only through the relationships that I still maintain with old friends but in fond memories and sentiments. That's why I am particularly grateful to whomever it is that founded the Webster Alumni Page, a repository of names that would otherwise evaporate from my brain.
That said, there are still some names from high school that boil my blood, One of these individuals -- we'll call him "Rat Crapfield," -- was, simply, the most egregious and arrogant phony I have ever met. He walked the school hallways like he owned the place, despite the fact that he had no apparent physical, intellectual or artistic talents. He existed like a barnacle on the outer hull of popularity, under the surface, invisible but ubiquitous. He was not funny but he liked to laugh at people. In front of teachers he would act smarter than he really was. In front of other students he would act dumber than he really was. And he was always a total dick to me, probably because I was perceptive enough to see through his vainglorious facade and recognize the sad, insecure, soulless turd he really was.
So I was surprised to find an e-mail from Rat in my inbox this past weekend. With strange curiosity I opened the e-mail to find that it was an Evite to a political fundraiser for a former Webster High School science teacher who is now running for office as a Monroe County Legislator.
This teacher -- let's call him "Dr. Jerkface," -- never had the pleasure of instructing me in one of his classes. But I did interact with him on a number of occasions and found him to be a smug and self-absorbed attention whore with no sense of humor -- unless he was laughing at one of his own jokes.
I can remember one particularly annoying episode. One morning, me and my girlfriend at the time had a fight on the drive to school. I can't remember what the fight was about -- it might have been that time she surprised me with her new hair color and I responded with what by all accounts was a substandard level of enthusiasm -- but she was steamed. She must have been shivering with passionate hatred for me when she went into her first period biology class with Dr. Jerkface, because the following period when I went to the A/V room to do the morning announcements, he cornered me and chewed me out for causing a disturbance in his class. It was the closest I ever came to putting one of my teachers in a headlock and delivering a series of punches to his kidneys. And I could have done it, too, because Dr. Jerkface is and was about the size of my right thigh.
So anyway, there I was, staring at this Evitation, sent by a person I hate on behalf of another person I strongly dislike, and the blank RSVP form is inviting me to say something really incisive and insulting, to vent not only my personal distaste for these individuals but my irritation at being reminded of these distasteful adolescent anecdotes, and my incredulity at his offensive presumption that he could cut-and-paste the e-mail addresses from the Webster Alumni Page and repurpose them for his cute little Political Action Committee.
(Is that legal, by the way? I intend to contact the Webster Alumni Page Webmaster and urge him to put some sort of disclaimer on the front page that addresses are not to be used for solicitation or other such purposes. Or maybe perhaps he could send Mr. Crapfield a strongly worded letter. It would be fine by me if the Webmaster hired someone to smack him around. That is a cause to which I wouldn't mind contributing.)
I stared at the blank RSVP space for several minutes, trying to come up with the right combination of sarcastic and righteous, before I gave up. I simply selected "No" and erased the e-mail forever.
If only I could do the same to Rat Crapfield himself.
