The high school experience truly is a 'bubble' that only those who exist within its ecosystem will ever fully understand. High school is an integral part of a young person's transition from adolescence to young adulthood but there are certain things that we experienced in high school, that when looking back on them now, seem crazy.
High school was definitely not what we see in the movies, however, every school definitely had its own set of quirks and characters that had to be lived through in order to be understood.
High school was definitely not what we see in the movies, however, every school definitely had its own set of quirks and characters that had to be lived through in order to be understood.
1. 'Who Wakes Up At That Time!?'
Waking up before 8 am can be tough, let alone be able to function as normal human beings by that time. Even after a morning coffee and a relaxing commute to work, even the best of us are still a little shaky before nine.
Then why do we expect a bunch of teenagers to be able to function any better than we could? As high school students, we were expected to be alert and ready to learn before most of our teachers had fully woken up. Looking back, it's a lot easier to sympathize with some of the teachers who were a bit grumpier in the mornings.
2. 'Using The Payphone Next To The School Office For Everything'
The cellphone revolution of the early 2000s essentially has pretty much rendered payphones obsolete. It seems like only yesterday there were queues in front of high school offices, of students who were waiting to make a call with a quarter or phone card in their hands.
Before cell phones, those payphones were used for everything. Some people would pre-order pizza to pick up on their lunch breaks, while others would use the phone to call in 'sick' for the day. From the phone right in front of the office. Now high schoolers can call in 'sick' on the walk over to their buddy's place.
3. 'See-Through TP'
Finding the perfect combination of thickness, softness, and coarseness is quintessential in selecting the perfect toilet paper, and as the panic buying of the spring of 2020 taught us, toilet paper is possibly the toiletry that people care most about. It is hard to believe what we used to look at as acceptable for our posteriors.
In high school, it was normal to use something that had the thickness and consistency of cheap crepe paper. Using a lot would help, which would explain the pre-covid toilet paper shortages and constant plumbing problems in high school washrooms nationwide.
4. 'Emergency Protocol'
Fire drills happen so often that when a real emergency does transpire no one takes it seriously enough. Every Tuesday for an entire semester at my high school we had what was known as 'bomb threat Tuesday'.
There was never any danger growing up in the town where I did, but precautions needed to be taken. As a result, every Tuesday the school was evacuated for anywhere between 1-3 hours. It's shocking how non-chelante we would take something that could have been rather serious. Besides, most of the calls were traced back to the payphone in front of the school office.
5. 'Every Time!'
I don't think that anyone knows for sure where or when this rule originated, but somehow the 15-minute rule has made it all over the world.
Some individuals believe it to be a myth because they have never had the chance to test out the rule. Those who have made it 15 minutes and 1 second without a teacher, know the thrill of witnessing a myth becoming reality.
6. 'Old-Time Digital Entertainment'
Everyone, take out a calculator and follow along. Type in the numbers as they appear in the story: A Woman down the road had 69 kids. She thought she had 2 2 2 many. She went over to 51 Holm Street to have some tests done to see how they could have multiplied (multiplication sign) so quickly. 8 hours later she awoke to find an equal amount of issues, plus one. She was...( Now flip over the calculator.)
There were not as many ways to entertain one's self in high school before smartphones. We actually relied on calculators for entertainment.
7. 'Human Pin Cushion'
In high school, there are people who do some very unusual things out of boredom. It would not have been out of the ordinary to tie a rubber band around one's finger or draw a face on one's hand. But some things were a lot weirder than others...
More people than would be willing to admit it as adults had definitely done this in high school. Why? Because there was not much else to do.
8. 'Sugar Junkies'
High schools do not usually have many (if any) shops within them. Aside from the cafeteria, and the occasional bookstore the only other thing to buy at school, is candy. Vending machines are good, but nothing beats the old-school tuck shop.
Whenever the tuck shop would get a new product there would be line-ups outside the store like they were going out of business or something. People would try to see who could put more sour candies or marshmallows in their mouths at once, it was kind of a weird competition to have, but it kept us busy.
9. 'Bloody Knuckles'
In what world could it possibly be a bad idea to sling quarters at a friend's knuckles in hopes of making them flinch or better yet, drawing blood.
In the wonderful bubble world of high school of course. There was never any ill will towards anyone while playing 'bloody knuckles' it was all fun and games...until being paired up against the kid with 'brass knuckles'.
10. 'Don't Try This At home'
Anyone who has watched professional wrestling has tried at least one wrestling move in their lifetime. Anyone who was part of a group of friends in high school whose members all watched wrestling, most likely started a backyard/basement wrestling league at some point.
From 'frog splashing' off of the roof and onto an opponent, to being speared into a pool, it is absolutely insane to think of some of the things that people did as 'amateur professional wrestlers' in high school, unsupervised, and with absolutely no safety regulations. The HWA's pinnacle event, 'Poolside Panic At Huckleberry Lane' will live on in infamy. That day, legends were made and careers were ended.
11. 'Vodka Water Bottle'
There are a lot of ongoing jokes and rumors about teachers in high school. The longer a teacher works at the same school, inevitably they are going to have more stories told about them.
Every high school has a teacher who everybody thinks is drinking alcohol all day long. All because a teacher has an unlabeled water bottle on their desk, seems to have a funny smell about them, and slightly slurs their speech, it does not mean that they have a problem.
12. '5 Minute Warning'
Most schools have a song that gets played over the loudspeaker when there are five minutes remaining until first period starts. These songs are engrained in the minds of students for the rest of their lives. They instill panic in the listener when they are heard.
Everyone at my high school knew that at almost sixty seconds long, give or take a second or two, when the theme song to Hawaii 5-0 would start, there was one minute to get to class. It seemed as though every morning from 814am-815am the entire school was playing a horrible game of musical chairs. Everyone would walk frantically to class in every which way while trying desperately not to be run into or to run into anyone else. What a terrifying way to start the day every morning.
13. 'The Lid-Flip'
I'm not sure why it was considered normal, but most groups of friends in high school had the kid who would flip their eyelids up in attempts to freak out the others.
There was a kid in my high school who would sit on the floor just inside one of the doors and when people would walk past, he would look up with his lids flipped. It got to the point that we all knew where he'd be sitting, and we would try to avoid using that entrance in the mornings.
14. 'Snow Or Shine'
While our parents and teachers were driving or taking the bus to work every day, we were usually walking to school, no matter the weather.
The only bad thing about a snow day was arriving at high school, freezing cold and soaking wet from walking a few miles in a blizzard, was finding out that classes had been canceled after arriving. Knowing it was a day off, however, the walk home was always so much more pleasant.
15. 'Amount of Card Games We Played'
There is an endless number of games that can be played with a deck of cards and it is extremely portable, fitting into someone's pocket with ease. That would probably explain why there were always so many different games of cards happening simultaneously all over the school.
At times, because of the different cliques of card players, the high school cafeteria would look like an amateur casino. The games would all have bizarre names like 'Rat-Screw' or 'Mao' and everyone would have their own 'house rules' for each one.
16. 'Cardio Right Before Classes'
Whether it be the kilometre club or the morning mile club, high schools across the world have launched programs to try and help teenagers stay in shape from a young age. The point of these clubs is to meet up an hour or so before classes begin and run a marked route that equates to the distance of either a kilometer or a mile.
The expectation is that we would run a few miles in the morning and then sit through classes covered in sweat and smelling like a dirty gym bag. As if high school wasn't tough enough already for some kids, now they're also known as this semester's stinky kid.
17. 'Lack Of Sleep'
Waking up at 7 am in order to get to class at 8:15 am is no easy task, especially after being up until 5 in the morning playing video games with a buddy.
The good thing is that there was usually one of the classes during the day that we knew we could get away with taking a nap and preparing ourselves for that evening's gaming session.
18. 'Hallway Hangouts'
High school classes always seemed to get in the way of our socializing time. Just when we would be getting to an interesting part of the conversation or the end of a card game, it would be time to head to class.
It was perfectly normal to have a set time to go for a 'washroom break' during class in order to meet up with friends and sit in the hallway chatting for 5 minutes or getting in a few more hands of euchre before going back to class.
19. 'Bottomless Pit'
As we get older, it is difficult to continue eating everything and anything we want without seeing the consequences of our gluttony.
Splitting the twin XL pizza combo from the local pizzeria with just one friend while on lunch break during high school was a normal occurrence. The amount of food and what we ate was both disgusting and amazing. To paraphrase Edith Bunker "those were the days".
20. 'Using Glue To Its Full Potential'
It was easy to tell the level of a classmate's boredom by the absurd activity that they would be partaking in, in order to stave off said boredom.
Spreading a thin layer of glue onto one's hand and peeling off what appeared to be a layer of skin, was all the rage for a year or two. The verdict is still out on whether the glue was toxic or not.
21. 'That's Rubbish!'
We would be rather hard-pressed to try and find someone who attended a high school where nothing weird was ever put into the school toilets. If it's a game, it's one that I was not privy to, but more often than should be expected, garbage bins would find their way into the school's toilets.
On occasion, we would find flaming garbage bins in the washroom. No one ever seemed to mention it to anyone, though, they would usually just move on to the next washroom like nothing was wrong.
22. 'What Are They On?'
Just as in adult life, in high school there were the kids who were definitely morning people. The only thing is, they always seemed to be drama kids. Somehow, drama kids have an unlimited amount of energy all day long.
They always seemed to be extremely excited about whatever it was they were doing, and the rest of us grew to accept this as the norm for anyone in drama class. The bizarre thing is that when there was a drama kid who wasn't hopped up on caffeine or pep-pills, the rest of the school thought something was wrong with them.
23. 'Wearing A Sweaty Pinny'
The majority of people find it uncomfortable to wear their own gym clothes more than once without washing them. In high school, the Phys Ed pinnies were washed once a month, or at best once a week.
It is bewildering how it was acceptable for class after class of students to wear the same pinnies during gym class. The goal was to get the pinny that smelled the least bad out of the lot. Unfortunately, every last one of them was covered in sweat, and in some cases the tears and blood of other students.
24. 'The Amount Of Writing We Did'
While trying to find just the right way of saying something, it could sometimes take an hour to write a one-paragraph e-mail for work. In high school, for some reason, we were expected to develop superhuman time management skills over the course of a term while becoming essay writing machines.
Over the course of a four-month semester, we would usually be assigned 2 essays to write that would be worth about 20% of our grade each. For our end-of-term exams, we would be expected to write anywhere from one to three essays in a three-hour time slot.
25. 'Revision Day'
There were not many events during a school term that would get the attention of everyone in class quite like Jeopardy revision day. It's amazing how it would be difficult to get a class's attention all semester long, but when that trivia board appears at the front of the classroom, all bets are off.
When it came to Jeopardy, there was not one person who was too cool to play. Jeopardy was a serious event in high school. There were no friends when it came to picking teams and it was one of the only times being the brainy kid in class would get someone picked first in the draft.
26. 'Washroom Passes'
Teachers have been given the unbelievable power of being able to decide when it's acceptable for their students to use the facilities.
The need to ask permission to go to the washroom has always confused me. The fact that we accepted it as normal for someone else to let us know when it's okay to relieve ourselves is crazy.
27. 'I Have The Same Colour'
As the school day moves towards its conclusion, the desire to find something that will occupy our time for the second half of the day grows stronger. When our pencil case is the only tool at our disposal, it's time to get creative.
And that's where 'Wite-Out' comes in. It didn't seem the slightest bit weird to see kids all over school, with chipped 'Wite-Out' nail polish.
28. 'No Calculators'
The reasoning behind why we were not allowed to use calculators on math exams eludes me to this day. Students used to be told that it's because in the real world they won't have calculators with them wherever they go, and then cell phones happened.
Nowadays, everyone literally has a calculator in their pocket at all times now, but still, calculators are not allowed during math exams. I am yet to find a moment in adult life when I have needed to figure out a math equation by showing all of my work.
29. 'Kicking The Sack'
The hackie sack has been entertaining groups of students for decades. Every school has a group of kids who meet up before, during, and after class in order to kick the sack around.
It would be difficult to tell where in the school the sack circle would appear next, but when it did, everyone around would make room for the sackers. It was as though there was a force field around the players and the other students would work their ways as carefully as possible, around the circle.
30. 'The Kid Who Thinks They Are An Animal'
Every high school has its own group of characters that everyone in the school knows. There's the jock, the prom queen, the nerd, the bully, and of course the kid who thinks they are an animal.
Eventually, the kid would either grow out of whatever phase they were going through or fully transition into a cat. If we saw someone who hissed or barked at us on the street as adults, we would not take it as passively as we did in high school.
31. "Self-Satisfied'
Marilyn Manson took the music world by storm in the 1990s with his graphic videos and vulgar lyrics that helped a generation of teenagers cope with the hardships of being misunderstood by those close to them. It wasn't his music, however, that garnered him the most amount of recognition.
The name Marilyn Manson is connected to perhaps the biggest rock and roll myth to come out of the 1990s. High schoolers may not know which song was his biggest hit, but they have almost certainly heard the rumor that he had one of his ribs removed in order to...well, we all know the rest.
32. 'Pixy Dust'
In high school, we were usually fueled by one of two things, sugar or boredom. There was no way that the result of combining the two was going to turn out well for anyone involved.
It would not have been out of the ordinary to see a group of students in the corner of the cafeteria snorting Pixy Stix as though they were real narcotics.
33. 'Loud Noises!'
Trying to stay focused on what the teacher is saying is difficult enough already because of all of the in-class distractions. Whether it's the kid with glue on his hands or the group of girls scratching 'Wite-Out' off of their nails, there is always something to pull one's attention away from where it should be.
If the events in class were not distracting enough, every now and again a loud noise or person screaming can be heard coming from somewhere else in the school. I suppose everyone just assumed it was the drama kids because no one ever asked questions. If that were to happen as an adult, the police would probably be called to check out the disturbance.
34. 'Gambling Away Lunch Money'
Tossing coins to see who can get theirs closest to the wall may not seem like fun to an outsider, but there is a limit to how much bloody knuckles someone can play.
If there were enough people playing and everyone was willing to play with quarters, one round could end up being quite profitable with one good toss.
35. 'Smoking In The Boys Room'
Seeing smoke coming out of a washroom stall or people hanging out in the washroom smoking, would be a cause for alarm at the bus station or public restroom. In high school, it didn't seem to bother any of us very much.
No one wants to be the snitch who says something about the people smoking in the washroom at school.
36. 'Age Gap'
A difference of one year seems like nothing now but in high school age was everything. It was extremely rare to find anyone hanging out with people from outside of their grades.
As adults, if someone's age is within 5 years of our own, we considered them to be our age. Five years is longer than all of high school, but back then a senior wouldn't even be caught with a sophomore, let alone a freshman.
37. 'Popularity Contest'
There were people in school who would treat others horribly just because they could get away with it.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that so many people just stood around as bystanders. As adults, I'd like to hope that has changed.
38. 'Lunch Time Sports'
Tackle football on the snow is a high school tradition. It didn't matter how much snow was out there, or how much of the snow had turned into ice, there were 4-year rivalries that needed to be settled.
Playing tackle football in the winter seems like a great idea. Playing with no pads on the ice, maybe not so great of an idea. It's amazing that no one ended up seriously hurt.
39. 'National Skip Day'
National skip day is a tradition that dates back to the times of the first slackers. It is a day when all students come together (except those with nothing better to do), and ditch classes for the day.
If anyone tried to organize a one day walk out at work, there is very good chance their job wouldn't be waiting for them when they got back.
40. 'Muddy Tracks'
Once on school grounds there seemed to be a different set of rules than anywhere else we would go. For instance, think of the consequences of walking into someone's house with mud-covered shoes on. It probably wouldn't go over very well.
But in high school, no one had a problem traipsing around the halls while leaving a trail of muddy footprints and dirt in their wake.