It’s back to school time! It’s not only an important day for teachers, parents, students, and big box stationery retailers who have sixty million Bratz Trapper Keepers to unload before Christmas, but it’s an important day for Americans as well, as students get back to learning and parents get back to wondering why on earth I let him get me pregnant. He talked soooo smooth, and had a truck.
Anyway, here are some hints for the kids as they stomp back to the classroom this fall.
Go to class! Skipping class is a bad idea, since it takes precious seconds away from third period English where you can stare at Jenny Wilson’s pink bra you can see through her white blouse but she apparently doesn’t know it or does know it and wants everyone to know she’s wearing it. Either way, you win, and it’s better than staying at home playing last year’s edition of DDR. Plus, playing hooky is bad for your educational outlook. Just because Lawrence Timmons does it doesn’t mean you can.
Keep up with the fashion trends. You don’t want to be THAT GUY. I was THAT GUY in school, wearing extraordinarily gay Hawaiian shirts and those pants with about a hundred pockets in them, better for me to hide all my secret stuff, which wasn’t pot or Oxycontin but 8-sided dice. You don’t want to be THAT GUY, because you will test out of AP Physics but never know if the head cheerleader is ambidextrous or not, and let me let you guess exactly which one is going to be more important when you reach middle age. For guys, fashion shopping is easy: you could pay $8 for a white T-shirt with a gray stripe on it. But why do that, when you can get the same T-shirt and splash some Helvetica font with some letters spelling AMBERCROMBIE ironed in on it by an eight year old Malaysian child and pay $60 for it instead? For the young ladies, I recommend purchasing a modest pair of panties the size of a postage stamp and some “low-riding” jeans, a new fashion trend initiated by the National Association of Letting Everyone See Your Twelve Year Old Daughter’s Ass-Crack. Seriously, people, do you have ANY IDEA what your kids are wearing? Here’s a hint: they’re dressing like idiots and prostitutes. Don’t rush them. They’ll have plenty of time to do that in college.
Be wary of negative influences. The story of the bad seed turning good kids into irresponsible monsters goes back as far as elaborately scripted stage musicals have gone. Your tweenage (did I just write that?) and adolescent years are a time of broadening interests and social education. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be nagged by a series of ham-fisted platitudes into never engaging in any type of harmful activity such as drug use, sexual experimentation, vegetarianism, hair dyes, any clothes ever purchased at Hot Topic, music that sounds like someone dropped an electric drum machine down Hitler’s gaping rectum and lyrics that would shame Larry Flynt, cosmetics with a high glitter content, lip gloss (I mean, c’mon. They’re not cigarettes, for crying out loud. What’s your excuse?), One Tree Hill, and Scientology.
Just a side note: skateboarding is an activity you should pretty much grow out of by the time you are able to walk. Seriously, kids, you look like a thirty year old playing with a yo-yo when there aren’t any children around to justify it.
Study hard! In school you’re going to have to study a wide range of subjects, and some are going to be easy and some you’re going to wish very very hard for a medical ailment to engulf your teacher. That never works, by the way; they’ll always replace him or her with some student teacher who will be hot and you’ll be distracted and end up failing anyway. Still, it’s best to at least give an effort for those subjects you find hard to grasp. There is no shame in asking for help, whether it be tutoring or after-school instruction. No shame, that is, if you don’t mind being an incredible pussy. Real students grab their ankles and grit their teeth and learn Avagadro’s Number with only the sheer force of the proper application of scholastics. By the way, if you think American History is a difficult subject, you are a failure as a human being.
Don’t neglect extracurricular activities. While you don’t want to distract from your schoolwork (cough, cough) the act of socialization is paramount in a child’s education. In fact you’ll learn many lessons that just can’t be taught in any school book. For example:
Little League: Sportsmanship, fair play, benefits of the luxury tax, learn the basics of memorizing completely useless statistics for a sport whose fan base is shrinking to embarrassingly small numbers
French Club: Meet girls (for guys); speak French (for girls).
Chess Club: Chess, Logic, Loneliness.
Student Newspaper: making rash, incalculable statements with a house of cards for evidence and a transparent knowledge of practically nothing of value into an article that will influence millions of potential voters, customers, and workers. Also, what the hell an adjunctive is.
Cheerleading: synchronization, directions to the clinic
A/V club: How to post a video clip of a dog riding a skateboard on YouTube.
Chorus: Self-loathing, ten years of majoring in voice and ending up as the assistant manager of Blockbuster.
Marching Band: Discipline, order, coordination, invading Poland, feeling superior to chorus members.
Most importantly: stay in school. It may be a lonely, thoughtless eight hours of mind-numbing boredom, arbitrary rules, limited added value to property tax spending, and minimal gains for an extensively elaborate amount of effort, but it beats spending all day serving customers at the Burger King or, worse, with your parents.
American Lament 
I searched for something different, but found your blog! And have to say thanks. Nice read. Will come back.