The funniest times at high school came when it got down to one-on-one arguments.
One of the strangest things that happened to me was that I didn’t use the school backpack. Having a school backpack was considered a compulsory uniform item, much like the ugly brown sack-dress and ugly brown shoes.
My parents had bought me the cheapest school backpack on offer, but my textbooks were heavy so I used a plain kmart-type backpack with more padding.
For some reason, this got me dragged into the vice principals office one day.
While she was lecturing me, I was staring out the window at the view of the school. I don’t remember paying much attention to her, as I really didn’t care, but I think it went on for a while.
At some point in her rant (Lecture? Lesson?) about how school backpacks were critical to the appropriate upbringing of a young woman I actually started paying attention. I know this because something she said (I can’t remember what) irritated me and I screamed at her “So you want me to have a sore back then!?” and she replied “YES!”.
I don’t think the conversation went on for too much longer after that. She was probably scared of the fact she told me looking ‘right’ for the school was more important than back pain.
I never did go back to using the school backpack. I think I told my parents about the argument and the proverbial hit the fan that a teacher told me to have a sore back. I wouldn’t describe my non-school backpack as tolerated from them on, but I think they just looked the other way and pretended not to see me.
