K-12: Adventures in Education. Part 7

This is the final part in a 7 part series chronicling the adventures of young Alex Traynor in public school, to read the abridged version, click here.

Junior year of high school

Junior year was a remarkable year for me. Remarkable in a way that none of the years before it had been. Junior year was when my life was made complete. When the missing piece was added to my soul. In junior year I met my first love:

A crappy white Station Wagon nick-named, “The Awesome-mobile”

Although, I didn’t meet my first love at the onset of Junior year; I had to pass a test first. A test that would determine the amount of girls that would hang around me just to use me (which I’m A-OK with): The Drivers test.

Now, unlike most of the kids my age, I wasn’t particularly psyched about driving. Mainly, because cars go fast, and I’m a pussy. Well, not a complete pussy, but after almost having driven a stolen minivan into a tree, I had lost my appetite for going faster than 12mph.

Though, eventually, my need to get of the house and, you know, socialize helped me overcome my fear of things that go ‘Vrroom’ (Except vacuum cleaners, I was never afraid of them.) Also, I realized that driving was the only reasonable method of transportation (*cough*This mean you, Motor Scooter*Cough*) since teleportation machines hadn’t been invented yet (although, they might by the time you read this, Mr. Future)

At my dad’s behest, I enrolled in the school’s 30 hour Driver’s Ed course. Which is basically an extended review of all of the ways you can die in a car crash.

A list of things I learned in Drivers Ed:

• Don’t drive drunk.
• Don’t drive high.
• Don’t drive both high and drunk.
• Don’t drive naked.
• Unless you’re really hot.
• Hydroplaning doesn’t exist.
• Except, of course, when it does exist.
• And kills you.
• You can’t drive a car into a lake.
• Unless it is also a boat.
• Stop signs are red.
• You should stop when you see them.
• I mean, really stop, not just go through the motions of stopping.
• Someone could die that way.
• Drivers Ed was reaaalllllyy boring.

After five weeks of Drivers Ed, the moment of truth finally came (well, actually, due to a backup in the DMV, the moment of truth came about 4 months later, but that’s beside the point.) I put on my nicest shirt, and went with my Dad to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And then finally, it was the moment of truth (well, actually, we waited for 5 hours at the DMV, but that’s beside the point.) I was introduced to the one person who would decide whether or not I would have a license (and consequently, whether girls would hang around me just to use me or not): an 80 year old German guy who I can only imagine was a Nazi at some point during his life.

The test itself was over in 15 minutes, and even though I made about 7 major mistakes, I passed anyway (probably because I wasn’t Jewish.) An hour later, I was handed my license, and all was perfect in the world.

And then, things got even more perfect, I met my first love (actually, my dad bought my first love, but it sounds creepier when I say that for some reason.) Now, at first I was a bit apprehensive about having to drive The Awesome-Mobile, but eventually, the feeling of imminent death passed, and we fell in love.

Now, I’ve already wrote about my love for the Awesome-mobile, so I won’t elaborate on the bond that tied our lost souls together. Instead, I’ll tell you about what that shitty Station Wagon did for my life:

It allowed me to love.

My heart of stone was turned into a giant heap of Jello Pudding. I gave hugs to random strangers, stopped kicking puppies, and donated a crapload of money to charity. (Alright, none of that was true, I just had nothing better to write.)

The Awesome-mobile was my best friend¸ and I loved it like a crackwhore loves crack. Eventually, it died, and I moved on to my next car (A minivan called “The Not-As-Awesome Mobile”), but I would never forget my first car, and the year in which I drove it.

Senior year of High school

Senior year was the end. Not just of my public school career, and not just of my adventures in education. But the end of life as I knew it.

Throughout the year, I was split in two. There was an overwhelming part of me that just wanted the whole thing to be over with. And another part of me that was incredibly fucking terrified.at the prospect of suddenly being thrust out into the real world (like when I was thrust out of my Mother’s womb 18 years prior [except slightly less placenta.])

Although I made no secret of my terror (oftentimes becoming hysterical in the middle of the hallways screaming, “Why does it have to end? I don’t wanna grow up! Nobody loves me!”), there still existed in me a great sense of denial.

Denial of the fact that, whether I liked it or not, I would have to leave. That I would have to move on, forget all the petty high-school stuff I had been used to, and grow up. So, I just pretended I didn’t. Which worked for a while, until the year started to end.

And thoughts of helplessness at the prospect of no longer being legally mandated to be anywhere plagued my mind:

What will I do when I’m gone?
Can I handle that?
Exactly how homeless am I going to be?

And even though I’d never actually liked going to school, I didn’t want to leave. Mainly because it was the only environment I had ever truly known. I was afraid to let go.

So, I coped with my fear the only way I knew how: nostalgia. I was as nostalgic about public school as anyone who’s still in public school can be (so, I wrote this article).

And aside from the constant nostalgia, panic attacks, and the petty teenage stuff that goes along with High School, nothing incredibly important happened.

Before I knew it, I was graduating.

Sitting in a silly blue gown with a silly blue hat in the blistering heat, I waited for my name to be called so I could receive my fake diploma ( I had to make up a few classes in summer school [mainly, because I like to sleep] before I got the real one.) And, as I was sitting there, our class’s “Graduation Speaker” came up to the podium and delivered his speech. Which made me resentful, mainly because the speech I had written was rejected. So, I’ll end this article, and my adventures in Education, with the speech I had written, which I think sums it all up pretty nicely:

Glastonbury High School Football Rules!

A speech by: Alex Traynor

Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2007, I stand before you today, not as a guy standing on a podium, but as one of you. Brothers and Sisters in the class of 2007.

After today, the class of 2007 will live on only in spirit, as we’ll all move on with our lives. 15 years from now some of you will be doctors. Some of you will be lawyers. And I know at least 7 of you that may very well be homeless. But it’s not about the pursuit of our inevitable futures that keep us moving from day to day. It’s about the people we meet and the experiences we have.

Now, most Graduation Speakers use the art of ‘analogy’, often comparing graduating classes to blossoming flowers, or something fruity like that. As your graduation speaker, I promise to not analogize, because the Glastonbury High School Class of 2007 is much more complicated than a blossoming flower, or something fruity like that. Each and every one of us is unique, and for the most part, not all that fruity.

For the past 13 or so years, we’ve bonded together, more than I previously thought a group of 500 self-absorbed teenagers ever could. We’ve been through it all together:

The good times: When the school’s power went out and they let us go home.
The bad times: Every time the school’s power didn’t go out.
The sad times: 9/11.
And the downright miserable times: The day when my hair looked shitty and I didn’t notice it until 6th period.

We’ve all grown up together. From frightened, bed-wetting toddlers, to frightened, bed-wetting adults. Or is that just me? Out in the crowd lies my first best friend, my first girlfriend, the first person to beat the shit out of me, and the first person to make make me realize what this is all about. I feel like I know all of you, since you’ve all impacted my life a great deal.

Whether it’s the teachers who hated me, or the janitors who loved me. The girls who went out with me: all 4 of you, or the girls who turned me down: the rest of you. The black people I was unintentionally racist to, or the white people I was intentionally racist to. All of you have impacted my life more than you could’ve imagined.

At the end of the summer, we’ll enter the next phases of our lives. Some of you will be going to community college, and some of you will be going to real college. But we’ll always remember the times we had at good ‘ol Glastonbury High.

What makes this day so bittersweet is that I have to say goodbye to each and every one of you. I have to say goodbye to my best friend in 5th grade, and to the guy who picked on me in 7th grade. To the dude who crapped in the urinal, and to the girl who gave a handjob to everyone on the football team.

Now I have some confessions to make:

First of all: I didn’t know what our school’s mascot was until last year. A Tomahawk? Really? We’re named after a weapon?

Secondly: I was “absent” from school so many times, the nurses thought I had come down with Fake AIDs.

And finally: I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Also, I stole that last line from The Lord of The Rings.

In conclusion, GHS Class of ’07… Fuck you!

Epilogue

It’s August 28th 2007, the first day of classes at Glastonbury High School. Alex Traynor, exhausted from staying up the last night playing videogames, walks into homeroom and passes out on his desk. A teacher comes up to him.

"Didn’t you graduate last year?" She says.
Alex pauses for a moment to think. "Oh yeah"
"Then why are you still here?" she replied.
"…I don’t know. Habit?"
"Go home"
"Really? I can just go home? Like that?"
"Yeah"
"Hooray!"

So, Alex picked up his new backpack, with his new school supplies, and ran to his car and drove home. Where he would eat cheetos and watch Bugs Bunny in his underoos for the rest of his days. Well, until he went to college, that is.

The End. (Fucking Finally)