Shenanigans!

[Las Naranjas]

Incidently, who here has been suspended at some time during their school career and thus meet the criteria to enter the hall of fame.

[rodekill]

One year they accused me of cheating on finals and said I'd either have to repeat the grade or change schools.
I called their bluff and told them I'd changed schools.
I didn't change schools, nor did I repeat the grade.

This other time I almost got suspended for wearing shorts too early in the year, despite the fact that it was 32 degrees out. Don't remember how I proved they were morons that time, but suffice it to say, I didn't get suspended.

And yet another time I got in late from lunch with a buddy of mine, so we left our jackets in one of the bathrooms (we weren't allowed into the locker area if we were late, and would face detention if we asked to be let in). When we went back my jacket had been stolen.
The next year we were doing some fundraising after-hours, so we got the special key to use the maintenance elevator. The door opens. The janitors trolley of janitorial crap is sitting there. My jacket is hanging off of it. I decide just to let it be, since the poor guy must be in dire straights to have to steal a jacket from a kid, but my friend wigs out and tears the jacket to pieces, literally. They try to get us to buy him a new jacket, we refuse. I prove it was stolen. They never admit being wrong, however the topic mysteriously never comes up again, and the janitor in question dissapears without a trace the next year.

Point being, the people that run public schools are nothing but a bunch of power-mad dolts who are easily outwitted by the students in their care. I'll try to keep this in mind when my kids are in school.

As far as shenanigans go... hmm... let me think about it a while. We did a lot of dumb stuff, but I'm not sure what's original and interesting and what's just the regular teen-aged stupidity.

[remixor]

Amazingly, I never got suspended.  Considering some of the stuff I did while on school grounds during school hours, this surprises me.  During my senior year, two friends and I decided to compete in Battle of the Bands.  It was the proudest moment of my high school career.  Our band was named FINGER!!!! and we played all our instruments with only our middle fingers.  I played a hugely distorted dropped-D tuned guitar using only my middle finger and strumming with my other middle finger, my friend Carlo played keyboard using his two middle fingers, my friend John sang, holding the microphone by wrapping his middle fingers around it, and my friend Victor operated a drum machine using his two middle fingers.  I was wearing a full Spiderman costume, Carlo was wearing crazy faux-gantsta stuff, John was wearing all black, and Victor had this weird white shiny plastic mannequin mask with eye holes poked in it.  It was creepy.  Our first song was this crazy absurd metal song we wrote to be as loud and simplistic as possible with John screaming and jumping all over the place and me whipping out a guitar solo using a violin bow at one point.  That song was mainly to get people to notice us and come over to watch, so we could bust out our second song.  We covered Dana Carvey's (stand up comedian) joke rock song "Choppin' Broccoli."  For those who haven't heard it, try downloading it, it's pretty funny.  That one was just me on piano and John and Carlo singing together.  Victor did weird interpretive dance in his creepy white mask.  By the way, we'd purchased 20 pounds of broccoli from the supermarket before school that morning.  As the song kept building up and getting louder, we started to take out all the broccoli and chuck it all into the crowd.  Victor started filling an acoustic guitar with broccoli.  People were freaking out, mainly because they were so confused.  When the song hit its climax, Victor raised the acoustic over his head and smashed it on the ground, sending broccoli flying everwhere.  It was crazy.

Anyway, I'm surprised we didn't get in more trouble than we did.  The administration was not happy, to say the least, but people were going nuts.  It was fun.

[Las Naranjas]

A few months ago in winter it was really cold at school so we lit some hobo fires to keep warm.

Then some more because they were funny.

The deputy saw me later on and says "What do you know about fires being lit?"
I answered "I know that it happens".
He says "Well you were nearby weren't you *wink wink*. I'd expect something responsible *wink wink*".

That Deputy rocked.

Though in year 10 he had to suspend me for two days when I made a symbolic redecoration (no vandalism) of bitchy mcbitchfacecunt teacher's room. There was also a theft of a fishing net that hang from the ceiling and which we weren't allowed to touch at all costs. (this was all done in front of the subsitute).

So I ened up with a four day weekend and he told me "I don't approve of what you did, but I understand why you did it" and gave me a huge pat on the back.

I sure felt contrition after that.

[Evil]

This other time I almost got suspended for wearing shorts too early in the year...

I wear shorts and a tee-shirt durring winter here all the time and believe me, we have cold winters in Iowa...

[Matt Brown]

midwest winters suck. We get about as bad here in Ohio. I dont see why you would get suspended for wearing shorts though, (unless of course, they were mucho short). If you wear shorts where I live past say, mid-october, its your own grave you're diggin

[rodekill]

Yeah, but like I said, power-mad dolts.
Our school was pretty tame, not a lot of drugs or fights, since we only had about 200 students, so I guess they had to find some way to make us hate them.

As another example of assholes trying to ruin good memories for kids, one year we wanted to put together a band for our annual talent show. We wanted to play something like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or whatever. They refused. No reason given. I guess they didn't like our taste in music. They recommended we play 'Something by Peter Frampton'. Cross one great childhood memory off the list.

[Alexis Vale]

Private school:
-costs too much
-no competition in sports
-strict dress code
-no fun...everyone is a zombie...or they have that "I'm a rich kid, so pretend I'm cool" humor.
-no getting away with anything...at all...
-one strike, you're out (unless you're rich)

Ugh. Save me...

[squinks]

I at one time had a teacher that didn't like me so much, and in turn I didn't appreciate him so much. So one day, we have a typical confrontation. He had a cabinet with school supplys in it that he always left his keys hanging from (which included his home and car keys) of course it was right by the door, so I just grabbed it and threw it in the recycling bin....I was a bastard in highschool....

Also, we used to play a stupid-ass game called car-tag where we drove around throwing garbage at each other. typically this involed throwing eggs at each others cars ect. The best time I ever had playing that was when we pulled up next to our buddys who thought we were out of "ammo". they rolled down there windows and started mocking us. Thats when we attacked with the ground beef. man that was some funny shit. The look on peoples faces when they get hit with raw ground beef is pricless....

[bspeers1000]

I once helped create a small revolutionary insurgence in my school.

(prepare for a long, disappointingly banal story)

We had a week equivilent to "school spirit week" in my old high school, called "Chimo Days" for the "eskimo" (read 'Inuit') word for friendship.  We celebrated this by having the loved/hated jocks and keeners in the 'Leadership' class (largely Christian fundamentalists) separate the entire school into 5 or 6 teams and put together a series of silly and pointless events (under the heavy influence of specific teachers) such as "tape the grade eight to the wall" or "competitive body surfing".  These games took up all of lunch hour in the main gym, and while exciting for pumped competitivists with nothing better to do, I found them excrutiatingly boring.

To make things all the better in drawing us in, they made incredibly sensitive themes for the teams each year, based on stereotypes.  For example, one year was various types of music, Goth, Punk, Rap, etc.  Since we had a small contingent of authentic 'Goths' and Punks, and these were the main alienated groups, it did a really good job of bringing us together :.  Another year it was occupations.  Plumber, Farmer, Doctor etc., really embedded with class stereotypes that further isolated the poorer kids.

First year, I dressed in team colours.  Apparently if you weren't in costume, jocks had the right to stuff you into a locker or dab you with a bingo dabber.  And team colours are so hard to identify, I guess.  No one I knew, friends among the rejects, weirdos and geeks even attended the games.

Second year, I wore full costume as a plumber.  My stuff was stolen.  Ditto on games.

By about grade 10 or 11 (I forget now), I realized I'd had enough.  It was stupid.  I came to school one day with the idea that we would create an independent team of non-attendees, sign up for the games and then not show up.  A harmless, goofy protest.  My friends agreed and we put up 1 poster: "The Independent Team RULZ!" The "z" put in as part of the mockery.

By the next morning, it had been torn down.

Slightly annoyed, we went to the art room, found  a few more friends and made more ironic posters.  "Join the Independent Team: Be Different" "The Independent Team: We Guarantee We Won't Win!", etc, etc.

Next day: All torn down.

We began to gain more members, equally distressed.  Here we were trying to participate (if ironically) for once and not even having our chance to speak.  We got organized.  People began finding more and more ingenious places to put up posters.  People snuck around at night in the art-rooms, making larger banners--still nothing as large as the banners used by the Leadership class and Jocks, but visible ones.  A writing friend of mine (also a huge, red-haired rugby player) and I came up with a bunch of other ridiculous slogans and put them all up on one large banner--my favourite being "Chimo Days is the Opiate of the Masses." Hilarious.

All of it got torn down in record time.

One guy printed off business cards with little anarchy symbols on them and slogans.  There were now more people involved, people I hadn't mentioned anything too, people I'd barely ever met.  Leadership class members were interogating people on whether they were part of it or not.  'Friendly inquiries.'  From what I heard later with my current partner, even the 'good' kids among the geeks that kept their head down and out of the whole mess had heard of it and were secretly cheering us on.  I started saving time by printing posters off computers in relatively mass quantities.  We went to various unseen places, slipping notes on the inside of display cases, taping posters to the lower part of an upper-level staircase, in numerous innocuous locations.  A guy I knew made a poster that read, "I bet you $20 you'll take this out of my hand before I put it up." -- he started to put it up, and a guy ripped it out of his hand.  "Wait, wait, no--wait, at least look at it! Aw come on."  

All of this, of course was heavily wink-nudge, but others just didn't seem to get it.  By the end of the week, the thing had escalated beyond what I felt comfortable with.  The week was over so we were ready to quit, but some kids who had been excluded even by the freaks and geeks were soaking up their inclusion (thank you Chimo days) against the dumb jocks and even dumber leadership kids, and wanted more.  One guy suggested (to strong approval by some others) that next year they put together a 'fascist club' with strict membership, and really show those others a thing or two.

If Columbine had happened, I would have called it another Columbine waiting to happen.

The next year I deliberately stayed out of things altogether, and the fascist team never started at all, having been forgotten by most people.  But the Chimo days insurgence is still a blemish on that dumb school, and Chimo days has begun to change character.  What a dumb waste of time those 5 years were.

Huhzaa!