(I am in my first semester of college, and one of my teachers for a music theory class starts showing up irregularly. I am in his first class, which meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. After about a week of it, I happen to run into a classmate from that class.)

Classmate: “Remember how he canceled all classes on Wednesday?”

Me: “Yeah, that following Friday he said he’d been sick and didn’t want to spread it to any of the music students.”

Classmate: “Yep. And then his car broke down on Monday, so only our class was canceled.”

Me: “And now today.”

Classmate: “About that… as I was walking by his door and saw the note, I said, ‘What did he do? Die?’ One of the other teachers said, ‘Yes,’ and walked away.”

Me: “What? Was she joking?”

(It turns out… no, they weren’t joking. Later that evening word got out. The previous night, he had apparently collected his mother from the nursing home, strangled her to death with a rope, and then hanged himself. In the meantime, the college bent over backwards getting us a substitute and creating many memorials for him. I don’t know how long that lasted, however, because not everyone was pleased with the college’s decision to honor him. As one angry student said, “The ONLY reason he’s not in jail for murder is because he killed himself!” I suspect they eventually realized it was rather… awkward to memorialize a murderer, despite how much they missed him.)

(My teacher momentarily leaves the classroom during a book reading and as expected, the class descends into child-anarchy for five minutes. Just conversations about TV shows and whatnot, but one boy sitting next to me is reenacting a scene, instead. He is yelling all the lines exaggeratedly, and even laughs in the place of the laugh-track used in sitcoms. I am not very social and don’t feel a need to talk to anyone purely because the teacher is absent for a few minutes. I am actually trying to finish the story we have been reading, but the boy next to me is making it impossible. While mustering the courage to ask him to quiet down, I am debating whether to ask politely or try and assert dominance: “Can you be quiet?” or “Just shut up!” What comes out instead is:)

Me: “Can you just quuck up?!”

(The surrounding kids that heard me went silent before bursting out into even louder laughter.)

Loud Boy: *laughs* “Sure, I can quack up! QUACK QUACK QUACK!”

(I groaned in shame and put my head down until the teacher came back. The next month was spent with me feeling humiliated while being taunted with “quack” jokes for my word fumble. Like other moments during that age, it was either quickly forgotten about or turned into a fond memory I learned to laugh at myself for.)

(My boyfriend and I are very nerdy and are mostly ignored by others, or we can’t join them in things they’re doing. We are going to take a special extra beta class next year, so we are meeting the new class, with some of our old classmates in it.)

Teacher: ”Be careful; the whole school will see you as ‘the nerd group.”’

My Boyfriend & Me: ”Why would you say that in a negative way?”

Old Classmate: ”If you’re a nerd, no one wants you to join things.”

My Boyfriend & Me: ”…”

(Still waiting to see that as a negative!)

(We have a classmate that is unpleasant to be around. We got a new student this semester; she’s sweet, and is the awful classmate’s latest victim.)

New Girl: *opens her locker and takes out a snake* “Hello, cutie. How did you end up here? I should really get the lock fixed.”

Awful Classmate: “You’re not scared? It’s a biga** snake! It could’ve been poisonous.”

New Girl: “The word you’re looking for is venomous. If it were venomous, I doubt you’d risk it just for the sake of a prank — although I’ve seen people dumber than that — and this sweetheart seems quite calm around humans.”

Boyfriend: “I think we should take it back to the biology lab.”

(They go, leaving the bully shocked, and me laughing.)

Awful Classmate: “What’s so f****** funny?”

Me: “You tried to prank the daughter of a reptile breeder with a snake.”

Awful Classmate: “How was I supposed to know?!”

Me: “Pay attention to anyone other than yourself? I mean, she talks about it quite often.”

(We didn’t have much trouble after that, and the awful girl was kicked out a month later. Lucky us.)

(I am having a conversation amongst my old high school classmates.)

Female Classmate #1: “Ugh. Some man just gave me a compliment! What a creep!”

Male Classmate: “Wait, so, as a man, if I see a woman and feel like giving her a compliment, I shouldn’t?”

Female Classmate #2: “Exactly. That’s SOOOO creepy!”

Male Classmate: “There’s no situation where it’d be okay?”

Female Classmate #1: “Well, if you were a stranger I liked back, then it’d be okay. But otherwise, no.”

(The conversation went on, along those points… but all I could think was that she essentially told him, “The difference between a man being creepy and being polite is whether or not he’s attractive.” Way to uphold stereotypes, classmates!)