MIDDLE SCHOOL DANCES -- A POST SCRIPT

Well, the dance is over. So, with a flurry of activity, that can only be described as a tornado sweeping through the unsuspecting throngs of citizens in its path, let the middle school break ups begin!

Yes, folks, this is how it's done, in case you weren't really versed in the HOW TO BE A FLAKY MIDDLE SCHOOLER handbook. You see ...

1. first you spend a month and a half leading up to THE DANCE, fretting over asking the right person
2. then you begin fretting over making sure that you ask him or her before someone else does
3. after that, you start fretting over the fact that you DID ask that person, and now what are you expected to do??
4. of course, what closely follows that is the worry about what to wear and whether or not you should talk to that person while you are in the hallways or at lunch and how many times you can possibly write his or her name in bubble letters on the piece of paper you took from your teacher's stash, because you certainly didn't want to waste your perfectly good notebook paper to bubble-letter someone's name ...
5. you go to the dance, spend the great majority of your time holding up one of the four walls, while the good, Sunday shoes your mom made you wear, cut blisters the size of Cleveland into your toes.
6. you do a couple of group dances, where you pray you won't look like a big dork,
7. and then, finally, you can heave a giant sigh of relief that the dance is done!

Come Monday, it's time to shed the whole ugly affair, and that would include the girl or guy with which you "danced."

This is where I, the teacher, come in, usually with a gigantic headache. I grumble and complain and squeal and holler and tell you that, if you don't stop the arguing with the girl sitting next to you over who broke up with who, and when, and why, "I'm going to mark all of your cub cards, and I'm going to have fun doing it!!!"

Please pass the valium ...