You know those hot shot college students who visit their high schools during break? Not the ones who genuinely miss their teachers. I’m talking about the complete asshats who waltz into lectures about mitosis and mitochondria uninvited, high on the fumes of their made-up prestige, to give completely useless advice to sleep deprived seniors like it’s the word of God–an indifferent, too-cool-for-you God. In reality, they’ve just had a fight with their parents, they’re bored as fuck, and they figured, Hey. You know who’ll appreciate me? The poor saps over at Poppy Seed* High.
I want to be that college kid.
Maybe deep down I already am, because I daydream about strolling into AP Lit, wearing something classily in violation of student dress code.
“Hello,” I’ll say, my voice a warm pot of honey bee honey.
“Omigod it’s my eternal idol,” the students will squeal, because of course by then the two underclassmen that I knew in high school will have multiplied into the whole student body.
“How is everyone?” I’ll ask, oozing knowledge and wisdom.
“We’re slowly dying and only you can save us!” they’ll beseech in pubescent chorus.
And I’ll say, with a dainty hand gesture which can only be learned in an Ivy League institution, “Let me give you some pro tips then.”
Has your opinion of me decreased? It probably has. But those visiting college students were honestly my idols back in high school. I desperately wanted to high tail it out of my suburb, onto any campus with grass and overpriced food, just so that I could go back and wave my freshman fifteen body rolls at some indifferent students in triumph. I didn’t realize that there was anything wrong with this dream, because isn’t this the circle of life? To consistently tempt younglings into desiring things that can only be achieved with time? (Is that not why we crave death?)
Anyways, this was my outlook for years. Then an old friend of mine captioned her finsta post with this:
“you can tell who peaked in high school bc they go back to visit it every time they’re home from college.”
Forget general relativity, or the even more inconceivable theory that the Earth is, in fact, a sphere. This caption proposed a notion that verifiably turned my world upside down.
Visiting high school…as college student…equals bad?
Impossible. Look, old-friend/common knowledge. One: That’s not true. And TWO: even if it were, I am different. I dream of visiting my high school not because I want to relive my glory days, but because I wish to share my knowledge and experience with those who are about to apply to college. Just like people have kids so they can teach them their life lessons as if it will make a difference. I. Will. Visit. My. High School. Okay?
I have yet to visit my high school. But I have talked to myself in the mirror for hours, literal hours, as if I were giving advice to a class. I have a list of pro tips that I will bust out when I finally do visit that English teacher with hair that defies gravity and a smile that defies the shit essays she has to read. I will give advice to her students, and classy hand waving or not, I truly believe it will help someone.
Oh, what’s on my list of pro tips, you wonder? Even if you don’t, please, I am begging you, come up and ask me.
Let me tell you.
Image via and via. Photoshop by Sarah Clapp.
*I really hope your high school was not named after the seed pods of an opium plant. If it was, I see why Brown accepted you.