Posted in
good times,
ignoramous,
junior high politics
So once upon a time in 8th grade my best friend (Brandon) and I liked the same girl. We'll call her Karen. And this became the source of some pretty intense competition, but when she briefly swapped her interest from us to some heavy-set loser, we'll call him Steven, we teamed up to harass him. (No offense Steven---if you ever read this, I just have to portray you as I saw you).
We didn't do anything bad. Not really. Somehow we felt like it would be too unfair to really crush the intellectually uninclined. So while Brandon and I missed no opportunity to one-up each other, we had to go easy on this dude for the same reasons that you don't beat up a midget. But that didn't mean he got to get off scott-free.
Now, it just so happened that Steven did like Karen, but not as much as he liked another girl, we'll call her Deborah. And they were apparently "going out" which is slang for pretending to be in a relationship even though we're much to young to really get it. Such is the background. We liked Karen, Karen liked Steven (heaven knows why), and Steven liked Deborah who, supposedly, liked him back.
It's also important to understand that in those days ("back in my day") we didn't have cell-phones and text messages, etc, we all passed paper-written notes in the halls and from home used MSN messenger. Wasting away hours with idle conversation, usually there wasn't much too it but sometimes we had ulterior motives. Kids were much smarter back then, what can I say?
One afternoon Brandon and I were at his house, browsing the web with his junkie blue-light k-mart internet. (I had AOL which was not better) When on MSN low-and-behold the message "Steven is now online" popped onto the screen. I guess he and Brandon were acquaintences from "back in the day" so they'd added each other but probably rarely messaged each other, if ever.
We decided to mess with him. I don't remember whose idea it was or how it all snowballed together, but when we started talking to him we pretended that Deborah was over here hanging out. We even "put her on" the computer and she told him how she liked Brandon now and wasn't that interested in him. This was not well-received, at first he was skeptical and then suddenly enraged. He kept sending us messages and we continued messing with him.
Then, without warning, we both felt a hand on our shoulders. "Hello boys!" We turned to see Steven right behind us, despite that fact that "Steven is writing a message" was still displayed on our screen. And we soon learned he'd given his brother the task of distracting us pretending to be him while he raced over on his bicycle from who-knows how far to sneak into the house and confront us in person. The dope had out-smarted us!
Oh crap!
He was bigger than both of us, so while we had the lions' share of intelligence that did us precious little good in a boxing match. I remember standing up, alert, listening and not saying anything. I don't remember if Brandon said anything either, I don't think he did. As I recall, Steven gave us a flustered red-faced speech about whatever and then stormed up the stairs. Brandon and I looked at each other, trying not to laugh for fear he'd hear us, when suddenly we heard Brandon's mom upstairs.
"Oh hi, Steven! I didn't know you were here."
Then louder than thunder Steven shouted from upstairs,
"YOUR SON IS AN IGNORAMOUS" and slammed the door. We busted up laughing and that was the end of it.
We didn't do anything bad. Not really. Somehow we felt like it would be too unfair to really crush the intellectually uninclined. So while Brandon and I missed no opportunity to one-up each other, we had to go easy on this dude for the same reasons that you don't beat up a midget. But that didn't mean he got to get off scott-free.
Now, it just so happened that Steven did like Karen, but not as much as he liked another girl, we'll call her Deborah. And they were apparently "going out" which is slang for pretending to be in a relationship even though we're much to young to really get it. Such is the background. We liked Karen, Karen liked Steven (heaven knows why), and Steven liked Deborah who, supposedly, liked him back.
It's also important to understand that in those days ("back in my day") we didn't have cell-phones and text messages, etc, we all passed paper-written notes in the halls and from home used MSN messenger. Wasting away hours with idle conversation, usually there wasn't much too it but sometimes we had ulterior motives. Kids were much smarter back then, what can I say?
One afternoon Brandon and I were at his house, browsing the web with his junkie blue-light k-mart internet. (I had AOL which was not better) When on MSN low-and-behold the message "Steven is now online" popped onto the screen. I guess he and Brandon were acquaintences from "back in the day" so they'd added each other but probably rarely messaged each other, if ever.
We decided to mess with him. I don't remember whose idea it was or how it all snowballed together, but when we started talking to him we pretended that Deborah was over here hanging out. We even "put her on" the computer and she told him how she liked Brandon now and wasn't that interested in him. This was not well-received, at first he was skeptical and then suddenly enraged. He kept sending us messages and we continued messing with him.
Then, without warning, we both felt a hand on our shoulders. "Hello boys!" We turned to see Steven right behind us, despite that fact that "Steven is writing a message" was still displayed on our screen. And we soon learned he'd given his brother the task of distracting us pretending to be him while he raced over on his bicycle from who-knows how far to sneak into the house and confront us in person. The dope had out-smarted us!
Oh crap!
He was bigger than both of us, so while we had the lions' share of intelligence that did us precious little good in a boxing match. I remember standing up, alert, listening and not saying anything. I don't remember if Brandon said anything either, I don't think he did. As I recall, Steven gave us a flustered red-faced speech about whatever and then stormed up the stairs. Brandon and I looked at each other, trying not to laugh for fear he'd hear us, when suddenly we heard Brandon's mom upstairs.
"Oh hi, Steven! I didn't know you were here."
Then louder than thunder Steven shouted from upstairs,
"YOUR SON IS AN IGNORAMOUS" and slammed the door. We busted up laughing and that was the end of it.
