I DON’T actually get this whole “parting shot” business. Isn’t that like an insult you make while leaving? Well, newsflash, I’ve got like two more months of writing prejudiced, morally-reprehensible, and pro-High School Musical columns, so this really isn’t a parting shot for me. I’m not going anywhere – just like that snarky cookie-pushing Girl Scout on my stoop who’s pretending not to know how many fewer Thin Mints they’re putting in each box this year.
Oh, wait, what? This parting shot is supposed to be nice? I’m supposed to guide you on a frolicking trip down memory lane where we laugh a little, cry a little, and maybe, just maybe, learn a few life lessons together. I know what you’re thinking: “I still can’t believe Michael Phelps is a pothead.” Well, everyone’s thinking that, but more specific to this parting shot: “Omg, I don’t wanna read 800 words about this kid’s life.” But hey, simma down now, I’ll keep it brief and informative, because I live by one rule: “Never tell everything about yourself – save it for your gynecologist.”
Most of the old parting shots I read (and thus am copying almost completely – plagiarism makes writing fun!), were all about how they made so many new magical friends, but the only friend I made was Goosey the goose. But I also know the rest of the ex-managing board is heartless and not that fun and are probably going to write about administrators and mockeries like student self-governance. So, yeah, sure I’ll reminisce about some friends for a hot second. Be warned, these kids are almost as socially-inept and annoying as those zitty high schoolers on MTV’s “The Paper.”
The first person I met at the Cavalier Daily (technically, I met a lot of others but I thought then, and still think, they were kinda dorks so I’m skipping them) was a spunky (did I say spunky? I meant stumpy) redhead who taught me life lesson after life lesson. Some of the gems include: if you make yourself private on Facebook, you get more friend requests because people want to stalk you, it’s never a bad time to get really emotional singing along to “A Whole New World,” and oh yeah, bread ends and dip from Take-It-Away is almost as crazy delicious as Red Vines and Mr. Pibb. But there comes a time in every boy’s life when he has to realize that the dip is the least classy of all condiments – mayonnaise – so it must be forsaken.
The second time I came down to the Cav Daily, I was greeted by my High School Musical soul mate. We did tons of classy, intellectual stuff like attend concerts, write poetry, and debate life’s eternal questions. Oh wait, I already gave it away by describing her as my High School Musical soul mate. What we really did was see the Backstreet Boys, stalk people with rhyming, yet threatening love sonnets, and our debates pretty much went like this:
“If you could, would you live forever?”
“Ew! No! Old people are the worst!”
“Which Jonas Brother do you think is the best? I like Kevin.”
“Ew! He’s so old!”
Then there are the weirdos who I met in the Cav Daily basement, but you didn’t trust enough to hang out with except in broad daylight where I could easily escape. There was that one girl who made me sit down at a computer, log into Facebook, and accept her friend request while she watched. Then we just had to discover our mutual passion for prairie dog movies and baking, to really hit it off. Note that by baking, I mean she baked me cookies and I ate them. And that one time she baked me brownies and I threw them at her friend, because they were burnt.
Of course, sometimes you might meet a creeper down in the basement and you don’t become their friend down there (even if you both joined forces to expose the mysteries of the mumps house). Heck, you don’t even really become friends outside the basement at this school. But when you’re both in California and you need someone to go to Disneyland with… omg, friendship!
Of course, with the good (well, the moderately okay), there come a few bad apples. Like that one kid who liked to call himself pragmatic, but who was really just whiny. Of course, he might whine that technically I am whining about his whining so isn’t that a little hypocritical? Well, when you get super cute and get a column, then you can be a pot and call a kettle black or whatever.
Then there’s the kid who talks to himself like a crazy person and sometimes tries to DTR before he DTG. Rookie mistake! And some questions can never be answered, such as the definition of awkward. Sure, maybe a dictionary (the only dictionary worth using obvi … UrbanDictionary) could tell me, but some things really need to be shown and not told. And by “shown,” I mean some people’s faces are the definition of awkward.
Whoops, this trip down memory lane got kinda mean, but who cares? I’m this close to getting on “Paris Hilton: My New BFF Season Two,” so I don’t need to hang out with pasty newspaper kids anymore.
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