Donny Varsity & the Cool Kids
Post # 21, October 31, 2024 by Lori Amann, Plain English Politics
Once upon time, on your very first day at All American High School, you stood nervously at the entrance to the dreaded cafeteria.
Your morning classes had been fine, but as the new kid in town, who were you going to sit with? You knew no one, and you didn’t want to be the loser kid eating by himself.
But then a miracle happened: Donny Varsity, the Captain of the Cool Kids, noticed you. You! He saw you were alone, put his arm around you and said, “Listen kid, if you want to make it in this place, you gotta sit with us. You do not want to wind up with those losers over there.”
He pointed to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. There were some nerdy looking kids with calculators and pocket protectors, a girl with a nose ring, a guy with long purple hair and fake eye-lashes, a boy in a wheelchair with a trumpet case in his lap, and some average looking kids mixed in with a bunch of others who looked like they might be from a different country.
Not wanting to offend your new friend, you said, “They sure look kinda weird.”
“Not just weird, my dude, they’re BAD. They’ll beat you up just to steal your sneakers. But don’t worry, you're with us now. If any of those freaks mess with you, I got your back.”
You couldn’t believe your luck. You followed Donny to the Cool Kids’ table and he introduced you around. All the Cool Kids were wearing their varsity swag and they seemed to be having a great time. Laughter erupted as they made jokes about how the kids at the Loser table were dressed. The Cool Kids were hilarious! So you laughed, even though you thought some of their jokes might have been a little mean.
The next day, you sat with the Cool Kids again, but this time Donny wasn’t there. You were wearing a green shirt, and one of the Cool Girls started making fun of it. The other kids at the table laughed, but just then Donny walked up behind you and saved the day. He put his red varsity baseball cap on your head, saying, “No, no, man, he’s cool. He’s one of US!”
Thus redirected, the Cool Kids immediately switched gears and started making fun of a girl sitting at the Loser table– a pretty blonde cheerleader who looked vaguely familiar. With a start, you realized that she was the same girl who had made fun of your green shirt at the Cool Kids’ table the day before. And today, Donny and his friends were calling her names that you knew would have prompted your mother to sentence you to a month of cleaning the chicken coops.
You looked around the table uncomfortably. But all Cool Kids, including the girls, were saying the same thing, so you figured the cheerleader probably deserved it. You laughed loudly and said the words too, even though you could see the cheerleader was upset.
The next day in the cafeteria, you stood once again in the lunch line talking with Donny. He gave you a playful, but hard, shove, and you stumbled a bit. A bunch of kids laughed and cut in front of you in the lunch line. It was so embarrassing. You tried to shrug it off, but it bothered you so much you decided to talk to Donny about it later.
“Dude,” he said, “that was for your own good. I got a reputation to keep up. If I don’t pick on somebody every day, those loser kids won’t be afraid of me. How would I protect you then? Come on, don’t be such a snowflake. You know we’re friends!”
At that, you felt a little better. What he said did make a kind of sense.
Finally, Friday arrived. You lined up to get your lunch then walked toward the Cool Kids’ table. Just as you were about to take your usual seat, Donny stuck out his foot and tripped you. You landed with a crash on the cafeteria floor, your lunch flying everywhere. It made such a racket that everyone stopped eating and stared at you. Then the bell rang, and Donny and the Cool Kids got up and walked away laughing.
You slowly picked yourself up and looked around. Most of the other kids had gone back to eating their lunches, but the girl with the nose ring had gotten out of her seat and was walking toward you. Wordlessly, she started gathering the food that could be salvaged. She put the milk carton on the tray and handed you the remains of your lunch.
“You okay?” she said.
“I’m good,” you answered, staring at the floor. She nodded and started to go back to her friends, but then she turned back to you and smiled encouragingly.
“You can sit with us, if you want.”
In that moment, you decided –
And that, dear reader, is where I’m going to stop, even though every good fable deserves a pithy ending. Because in this fable, only *you* can decide how it ends.
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