A story nobody asked for.
But nobody really ever asks for my stories, anyway. They all know better.
It makes me sad to say it, but I've mellowed in my old age. No matter what you think of me now, multiply that all by about 8,000. Nice old-lady speak would be that I was a "handful", and I certainly was.
A handful of seething anger, leaking ballpoint pens, and constant repetition of Violent Femmes lyrics.
I was terrible, and yes, some of it did go down on my permanent record.
A story nobody asked for.
I was in trouble almost every day, and looking back, most of it was deserved. Some of it wasn't -- like whenever I got in-school suspension for completing physics homework and the rest of the kids copying it, despite the fact that I had never actually taken a physics class. No, I shouldn't have been in trouble for THAT.
But, the rest of it? Sorry, fifteen-year-old me, but you had it coming. I can say with confidence that you were off the fucking wall.
A story nobody asked for.
Anyway, there was one thing that I always got away with, so much so that it could've been a mutant power that landed me in a cool boarding school in upstate New York.
I'd skip class. Just take the whole day off. Not show up to second-period English or chemistry II at the end of the day. Whichever I felt like doing, it didn't matter.
Sure, there were times when I was called out. But I was good -- inexplicably, might I add -- at two things:
A story nobody asked for.
1. Getting teachers that I never even had for a class to write me a pass.
2. Simply talking my way out of it.
To this day, I cannot begin explain why I was so successful. I can't negotiate my way out of Taco Bell screwing up my order, so how I pulled off that con back then, I'll never know.
Anyway, you writers can back me up on this: If we're good at one thing, it's noticing the unnoticeable.
Which, as it turns out, is great for finding hiding spots.
A story nobody asked for.
And I knew every inch of that school. Every alcove, crevice, and cubby. Anything I could fit myself into was fair game. I was kind of like a cat, I suppose. Or, well, something much more awkward than a cat.
I had a map. I STILL have that map. Every good hiding spot is marked with an X. It was an old building, so there were a lot.
I didn't have any friends, so they were all mine. I didn't have to share. I doubt any one person ever found them all, either.
A story nobody asked for.
At some point, I got really into picking locks. That's how I found the motherlode in senior year. I discovered that if I broke into a small janitor closet in the chorus hall, I could climb a ladder that went to some kind of fallout shelter above the stage. There were four cots and a ton of canned food. I still have no explanation for this.
There was also a sign that said "DANGER: ASBESTOS". Needless to say, I didn't take it seriously.
