Do you ever feel as though the last ten or twenty years may have been a dream? Concerned that your adulthood is a precarious sham perpetrated by capitalism and a greedy psychotherapist who keeps sending you in harm’s way just to reap the inevitable hourly-billed benefits of your defeat?
Constantly feel on edge that at any moment a conspiracy of bricks will cement around you, your body will burst from your now-shredded chinos and microfiber tee leaving you awkwardly wobbling in acid washed jeans with a comb sticking out the back pocket, laden with a Jansport pack crammed with a Trapperkeeper and a Tab for lunch, all because, all of a sudden, out of nowhere…
It Was Just Like High School?!?!?!
These symptoms are increasingly common despite their absurdity. If fact, studies are confirming that these ideations in fact be result from a viral warfare tactic. Oh, that clever Korean-Nigerian-Zapatista block, repurposing Nazi experiments, distracting us from our God-given North American productivity with the sourdough starter of regressive angst!
But have no fear, little misfit. Regardless of where the virus came from, if you are feeling like It’s Just Like High School, that’s just your fevered dendrites playing tricks on you. Remember, it’s not really just like high school. Like a bad acid tab or a starter heterosexual marriage, this virus will only last as long as it takes for your body to build up antibodies. What a relief!
In reality, the CDC, Homeland Security and Interpol Operative Bob Ross (who is alive and well and living a new life in the witness relocation program, long story) want to assure you that it is absolutely not Just Like High School. How could it be? You are, quite indeed, well past those years.
In fact, if it were Just Like High School, that would be good medical/mental health news! A fantastic, wonderful development in your quest to live forever young! And if it were Just Like High School, you’d be on Easy Street, my friend. High school the second time around would be a cinch!
For example, let’s pretend you are there again. Look at the teachers, they are dead-ends, just toss a cheesy ref to a French poet into each essay and you’ve got an easy A and a college recommendation ripe for the picking. Check out the art room, it’s stocked with some expensive crap like the darkroom you only wish you could have when it’s not just like high school.
Take off your shirt (whoa! look at your foxy body) and take tons of photos, sugar, you’re banging, plus you’ve got no bills, no kids, no spouse! Most importantly look at those goofy high school kids. Poor little babies. They really think they’ve got something going on.
But now the politics are completely transparent, the cliqued kids are insipid company as it turns out, you can see that now, so join the yearbook staff or the chess club or paint sets for the spring play if you want some friends, (hey, look, you remember your locker combination just fine!), say no to dissecting the frog, use your summer job money to put a downpayment on a lot at the lake–it’s only going up in value, steal a Camaro and run cocaine up from Miami–what the hell, you’re a minor. Have a good time! Done.
You wish it was Just Like High School.
It;s not. It’s just a virus. These feelings will pass when the fever goes down.
Now, a more pressing concern is when you feel This is Just Like in Preschool! Because that shit is serious scary. No cliques, mostly everyone is your friend in the sandbox, but there are a few sociopaths that even terrified Mr. Fred Rogers, God Rest His Sweet Soul. The bully boy who refuses to potty train and pokes raggedy eyeholes in the Waldorf doll heads. The blank-eyed biter.
The screaming crybaby bandaid fetish kid. A day or two of Just Like Preschool can be fatal, because regardless of how much you yourself have matured, that sort of madness is not meant to be endured by humans for long.
Just Like High School? It’s not. You’ll be fine. But Just Like Preschool? If you are lucky, the bully and crybaby will take each other down, that’s your best bet at survival. Just keep your eye on that biter, please, and you might make it through okay.
The CDC and your mother also would like to remind you to take your Vitamin C. Never hurts.