Fatter & More Cynical: What I've Learned Since Graduating High School. . .

I realized this morning that it is fast approaching the ten year mark of my graduation from high school, and it has led me to examine all the profound (*laughs hysterically) life lessons I've learned since the nubile age of 17.  Read on to gain insight into the staggering wisdom of a tortured genius. (i.e. me). LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES, HIGH SCHOOL PUTAS!

Life Lesson #1: Never, ever, EVER wear white shorts/pants during your period. I don’t CARE how heavy-duty and TSS-inducing you think your tampon is. In fact, don't wear white if you have even the slightest suspicion that your cooter might bleed at some point soon. DO NOT DO IT. I still have PTSD flashbacks of the day I bled profusely all over my new Hollister shorts and tried to convince people I'd just sat in ketchup. Unsurprisingly, nobody believed this story. 

Life Lesson #2: You might smoke weed for the first time soon, and for those of you like me—who are ridden with debilitating levels of anxiety—I cannot stress this next point enough: Regardless of what it feels like in the moment, YOU ARE NOT DYING. Marijuana can inspire a special kind of paranoia that often ruins the entire experience for people like me and my feeble-minded brethren. You might feel certain that you're on the cusp of death after taking a hit of a joint, but you're not. Listen, I totally understand that you think you can't breathe. I get that it feels like the dizziness might never stop. I've BEEN there. But trust me, you're fine. Don't do what my dear (dumbass) friend did. Don't call your mom to come save you and subsequently forget, thanks to your drug-addled state, and THEN call for an ambulance immediately after. Don’t do any of that. I ESPECIALLY don't advise eating an entire brick of Costco cheddar cheese (sharp, in case you were wondering) after the munchies set in, because you'll spend the entire next day shitting out bits of your intestines and dignity.

Life Lesson #3: If you almost shit your pants every time you eat cheese, you might be lactose intolerant. Get that shit checked out.

Life Lesson #4: Don't ditch Geometry for three consecutive years. I know it blows, and I'm aware that only sociopaths enjoy proofs, but you're going to feel way worse when you're the senior being tutored by freshmen that call you ma'am.

Life Lesson #5: Every single high school has had their own version of the infamous anal sex/shitting urban legend. You know the one I'm talking about. The tale usually goes something along these lines: Unsuspecting girl allows some meathead guy to stick his dick in her ass. Girl then shits all over guy and/or floor and/or car, etc. In some versions of the story, vomiting ensues. But hilarious as this story is (especially when the victim of this story is your estranged ex-best friend, as was the case at my high school) I think enough time has passed that we all grow the fuck up, and accept the fact that this story is most likely bullshit. There's no way every high school has their own anal sex mascot.

Life Lesson #6. Not getting asked to prom isn't as uncommon as the rest of the world wants you to think it is. I went through my entire high school career without ever ONCE being asked to a formal dance. And the Sadie Hawkins dance I was invited to freshman year doesn't count, for obvious reasons. 

Life Lesson #7: BOYS AREN’T SHIT!! I cannot reiterate this point enough. High school boys are inelegant and brutish. They will unintentionally and sometimes intentionally hurt you. All they care about at this age is Fortnight and fellatio, in that order. And to be totally honest, a staggering number of them never grow out of this stage. When I was in high school, I spent a year intermittently hooking up with a football player (whom I like to call Voldemort, because he shall not be named) in his bright red 1969 Mustang. We would park on any random cul-de-sac in my neighborhood, and spend hours finding ways to awkwardly navigate the other's body. These moments were terrifying and exhilarating and tantalizing in a way that made me SO excited for the future, and for all the rest of the grown-up experiences just waiting for me like a smorgasbord of adventure.  But then he started pretending he didn’t know me when we passed in the school hallways. He would look at the ground if I tried to shoot him a smile that would gradually mutate into more of a grimace. These interactions (or non-interactions, really) left me feeling used and invisible. I felt forgotten. It wasn’t until five years later, when Football Player Voldemort and I ran into each other again, that I got to hear his side of the story. I learned that those moments we'd shared in that red 1969 Mustang had also been his introduction to the stressful yet delightful world of sexuality, and that like me, he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. He told me he’d had a crush on me from afar for years, but was shy and hadn’t known how to proceed. He said he’d wanted to ask me to prom, but that I’d ended things between us in a self-righteous rage (that he found incomprehensible and confusing) the month before tickets went on sale. The point I’m trying to make here is that high school boys are admittedly savages—they’re just clueless savages. Don’t fault all men forever because of the atrocities committed against you by high school boys. In many cases, they know not what they do.   

Life Lesson #8: Do not draw out dysfunctional high school romances into adulthood. There are way too many other (bigger) dicks in the world to settle for the first one you fall upon.

Life Lesson #9: Pep rallies fucking suck, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a liar who is not to be trusted.

Life Lesson #10. DON'T wax your whole face in pursuit of a smoother makeup application, unless you want the entire surface of your face to be covered in a mosaic of pus-filled whiteheads, like some sort of disfigured toad.

Life Lesson #11: DO NOT overpluck your eyebrows!!!! DON'T DO IT. This is a traumatic rite of passage that every coming-of-age female has gone through. I firmly believe that there's an evil little monster that lives within each and every teenage girl, with the sole mission of convincing poor, impressionable idiots like me that her eyebrows would look super sexy if they were shaped like sperm-commas.

Life Lesson #12: I know you think older guys are hot, and I KNOW you want to bang your teachers, but any old dude willing to fraternize with teenagers—ESPECIALLY a teacher—is a fucking creep.