Tuesday, Apr. 26, 2005
Just One of the Reasons I Hated High School
I had an interesting, albeit uneventful weekend. Most of it consisted of doing laundry for 8 hours at my mom�s house on Sunday, since I refuse to pay $1.50 per load at my place. Actually, that�s $1.50 to wash a load, and then another $1.50 to dry the same load, assuming that the load dries during that one cycle alone. Who the hell are they kidding?
After our Career Fair (which was a hit), I went to a Mehndi Part for my friend who�s getting married in a month. A Mehndi party is basically an Indian bridal shower where the bride and all the women on the bride�s side get mehndi-ed (they get henna applied to their hands or feet). My friend isn�t Indian, but the girl who threw the party is, and this was her wedding gift since she wouldn�t be able to attend the wedding. Which is also why the party wasn�t done the night before the wedding, like tradition dictates.
I found out later from my mom that the story behind the whole mehndi thing: henna generally lasts for quite a while. Apparently, the mehndi is applied the night before the wedding because for as long as the design lasts, the new bride is to be treated as a queen. She gets waited on hand and foot and her new husband is supposed to do whatever it takes to please her. But, as soon as the stain completely fades, then the wife begins her true role as the subservient wife to her husband for the rest of their lives. Other cultures are so interesting.
At this party, I saw several people from high school, most of whom I was glad to see. One, D-Marie, I actually saw for the first time in 2 years last October. We used to be best friends in High School and then during college we grew apart. Part of that was because I felt that whenever I called her, she never had time for me or to hear my problems, which is somewhat understandable. However, whenever she called me, I was expected to drop everything to listen to her, which I usually did, because that�s what friends do when one of their friends is in need. And the times when I couldn�t just drop everything, I was accused of acting like a bitch. I quickly grew tired of that, especially when she never had time for me or the stuff I was going through at the time. Anyway, we�re still pretty civil. We�re not best friends anymore, but we talk when we see each other in person or online.
This, however, is not the case with another of my high school �pals�, Simone. First off, I was surprised that she was even at the bridal shower because I�m pretty sure that she wasn�t invited. Apparently she came with D-Marie; I�m surprised that they are still friends. When I walked into the party (I was an hour late because it started at 5:00, which is the time I got off of work), she was sitting right next to the door and I didn�t even notice her. Five minutes later, I guess someone pointed me out to her and she waved at me and then walked over and said all cheery, �Hi [Summer].� I was shocked to see and more shocked that she was pretending like we were friends, which shouldn�t have surprised me because she�s always been a fake bitch. I said, �Hi, I didn�t know you were here,� being as cordial as I can be to someone that I despise, and continued my conversation that I was having with someone else.
I think it kind of bothered her that I didn�t make any effort during the 4 hours we were at this party to find out about her and how she was doing, which is what I was doing with everyone else who I haven�t seen in a while. There was even one point when I noticed that she sat right next to me on the floor while a group of us were having a conversation, and I continued to ignore her. I wasn�t ignoring her in a bitchy way. She sat kind of behind me and she never said anything, so how was I supposed to know she was there. Even though I knew she was, but I really had absolutely no interest in including her in the conversation or learning anything about her.
I bet you�re wondering why I hate this girl so much.
I know that everyone out there has at least one person from high school who made his or her life hell. No matter how popular you were. Simone was that for me.
I knew of her in middle school. We had many mutual friends. Then at the end of 9th grade (which used to be middle school in Miami), we found out that we lived in the same gated community. That summer, we hung out together and became friends. She quickly became part of our group, which also included D-Marie and one other girl. As 10th grade went on, Simone and the other 2 girls started become closer, which didn�t really bother me because to me, we were all friends. One time, D-Marie and I got into this huge fight during lunch. This is way before we became best friends. This fight was so bad that I started crying, then got up and walked off to my next class. She had really said some very mean things to me that just weren�t true.
Later on that afternoon, Simone came over to my house to talk about �the incident�. The whole time she was saying how she couldn�t believe that D-Marie and said those things to me and how dare she and that I should demand an apology from her. And I was just like, I don�t want a fucking apology from her cause if that�s how she feels, then fuck her and I don�t care if I ever spoke to her again. The next day, I walk into the locker room at school and I can hear D-Marie, Simone, and our other friend talking. Al our lockers were located in the second row of lockers, so I could hear them as soon as I walked into the locker room. Simone was telling them how I said that D-Marie needs to apologize to me and fuck her because how dare she say those things to me and how I don�t need her anyway. I was shocked. Less than 24 hours before, she was saying that it wasn�t my fault and that D-Marie was wrong. Now, she was twisting my words and flat out lying. I walked around the corner and she stopped talking and said all sweetly, �Hi [Summer]�. I said �Hi,� really abruptly, changed into my PE clothes, and walked out.
There were other incidents like that when she wouldn�t know that I was around and she�d talk such shit about me, but would smile in my face and pretend that we were the bestest of friends. One of these times that I remember vividly was at the pool in our gated community. It was pretty dark out and me and one of my other friends from the same community were in the deep end of the pool hanging on to the ladder. No one would have seen us unless they walked right up to the pool. Simone and a guy friend of hers walked into the pool area and sat down at one of the tables. The guy asked her about me because he had a crush on me. God forbid a guy likes someone else besides her; that�s another thing about her I never liked. Simone says to him, �What do you want with that fucking nerd. She�s a loser.� Oh, so now, I�m a nerd. Although she never had a problem asking me for help with her pre-calc homework. I think someone who knew we were in the pool came by and then and walked over to the pool and started talking to us. So she walked over and saw us sitting there and of course she was all sugar and smiles like she wasn�t just bad-mouthing me 30 seconds before. I remembered that the next time she came to me asking for my help with something and told her no.
Well, anyways, things went on like that all throughout high school. And I could never escape because we lived in the same place and we still had mutual friends. I think, after a while I was just civil, but I knew to never let my guard down. I think what really pissed her off was that about 6-months after all the drama between D-Marie and I, we actually became best friends. It�s clear to me now that she was trying to drive a wedge between us for whatever reason, but it backfired, because we ended up becoming even better friends.
And she never once admitted that she didn�t like me or said the things that she did. Up to this day, she�s still trying to act like I don�t know and that she can still pull that con on me. I knew about it back in high school, I just didn�t have the energy back then to want to deal with it. I think that if I were a nasty person, I would have just told her to go fuck herself when she tried to be all nice to me at the party. But, I�m glad that I�ve let go of so much anger about that. Plus, I think the ignoring her cut a lot deeper than me losing it, because then it would have given her the attention that she�s so deeply craved since we were kids and made me look crazy.
Enough on that bitch.
Sunday night, I watched the most riveting show on A&E called �Interventi0n�. It�s all about people with different addictions and the interventions that they�re family and friends do to get them into some sort of rehab. What�s interesting is that the people think that it�s a documentary about addictions and they have no clue about the intervention part, which I guess is key to throwing an intervention (all the previous intervention knowledge I have is from 90210 VSEs).
One this particular episode was a guy who was a gambling addict and a lady who was not only a shopping addict, but she had all these other issues going on like OCD (switching the light switch on and off several times before being convinced that the light was really off, panic attacks when she moved more that 2 blocks away from her house, etc.).
The guy was out of control. He firmly believed that it is a parent�s responsibility to take care of their children for life, which included paying off all his debts. His poor parents took out loans against their mortgage and eventually sold their house and ruined their own credit trying to help him out. And after all of this, we would call them, on the cell phone they paid for, and demand that they pay off an overdraft fee to one bank for $2300 and $3000 for another bank because it was their fault that it got so high since they didn�t give him the money right away, all while he has just spent another night in Palm Springs gambling. What was worse was that he would tell his parents he had no money, and they would agree to help him pay some of his debts off until he got some, and the entire time, he would have like $500 on him. And, he tried to commit suicide several times to avoid having to pay his debts back. One of these times, he hung himself from a tree in his parents yard and his dad happened home and found him swinging from the trees and took him down. Can you imagine?
And during the intervention, he asked his parents how they could do this to him and why didn�t they expend the energy they were using on the intervention to find money to pay the banks. Then he told them that they�d get what they deserved for making him have all these debts and trying to force him into rehab.
To think, you try to do everything possible for your child. But where do you draw the line? Before or after you lose your house. I was having a similar discussion with someone the other day, but it was about siblings. I used to work for this absolutely crazy family (another long story for another time) as a tutor for a 6th grader with ADHD. This family lived in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Miami, and the dad could not afford anything because he was broke. His sister paid for everything: the mortgage payments on the house , water, electricity, groceries, and she paid me for my services ($10/hour for about 25-30 hours a week). And her brother was absolutely nasty to her. And she just took it, mainly because she couldn�t imagine her 2 nephews and her niece out on the street. I was telling this story to someone and they said why didn�t she just stop paying for everything. I said to him, if my sister were in trouble, no matter how much we didn�t get along, I would try to help her out as much as I could. Now, I wouldn�t go bankrupt because of her, and I certainly wouldn�t take crap like that brother was giving his sister, but I would at least try to find her some type of help. What�s funny is that the dad/brother ended getting indicted for insurance fraud and embezzlement from the company he worked for. I don�t know how all of that panned out because I quit once the school year ended. Actually, they still owe me over $200, but it really wasn�t worth my time or sanity to try to collect it.
I got off track. The point of all this was that it was truly sad to watch these parents watch their son so disgustedly, yet still with so much love. And you can tell they were wondering the entire time if it was something they did to cause him to end up that way.
If you get a chance to catch this show, it is actually quite good for a reality show. I believe it comes on at 10:00 on A&E. Next week they have a videogame addict and a bulimic, I think.
summerroll at 12:18 p.m.