Classmates

I was recently informed by a website called classmates.com that someone I went to high school with had looked at my profile--how exciting that ought to be for me! Au contraire, I say, using one of the few bits of knowledge I learned at the damn place.

I was two years younger than my classmates in high school and thoroughly hated and feared all of them.

My parents were going through a rather nasty divorce at the time, and these kids, in typical "Lord of the Flies" manner sensed vulnerability in me and behaved accordingly.

Every day I attended school was a day of agony for me; when I was a senior I had nightmares in which my diploma was somehow denied and I had to stick around the horrible place for another year.

Academic standards were somewhat relaxed at the time, so despite the unpleasantness of the experience. I learned little and my parents would have made better use of my time if they had gotten me a job picking cotton or mining coal. I learned a bit of geometry and a smattering of French and that was all. Anything I learned while an inmate of the damn place I already knew or taught myself, except for the French and geometry.