The high school I went to had a student government that was obsessed with candy. The candy was used as a fundraiser tool. A member would collect money from students. The money let you write a message on a card that would be delivered along with a piece of candy to the recipient of your choice. I didn't send a lot of them. I didn't receive a lot of them either.
One year, I did receive one. When I opened it, I recognized the handwriting, but it was signed by a secret admirer. The note went on and on about how much he liked me and wanted to ask me out...blah blah blah. I was puzzled from the moment I opened it because I knew whom it was from. You see, we had a class together the year before. When it came to big exams, the teacher paired students together based on their grades for the test. The person with the highest grade was paired with the person having the lowest grade. The person with the second highest grade was paired with the person having the next to lowest grade. Playoffs, if you will. Anyway, I had been paired with this individual and knew his writing quite well.
So, I went to see him and ask why he wrote me this cheesy note. It was incredibly awkward for me to ask him, but I'm glad that I did. As it turned out, he wrote the note because some female classmates of mine asked him to write it. They needed a boy to write it so their practical joke would be more effective...authentic male handwriting. He was asked to write me a love note because the girls wanted to see how pathetic my reaction was. The girls were being cruel and mocking me. The boy admitted what he had done, acknowledged that it was probably the wrong thing to do, and apologized for putting me in a situation that would cause further ridicule. He never told me who asked him to do it though. He only told me that it was a group of girls.
I went ahead and played the part for anyone who asked. I fawned over my fake candy gram. They (whoever they were) were already laughing at me anyway; I just thought they might like some new material for their jokes.
So spill. What was one really, really embarrassing moment for you in high school? Did you (like me) realize that groups of people were laughing at you behind your back? Did you come out of the bathroom with your skirt tucked in your stockings? Believe me, I could write a book, no, a tome, with all my embarrassing moments in it. Maybe I'll start doing that. A weekly blog post about the things that I would like to forget happened...
