(It is the first day of school.)

Me: “Hey, where is the cafeteria at?”

Other Student: *snottily* “Never end a sentence with a preposition.”

Me: “Okay, then. Where’s the cafeteria at, b****?”

(I’m sitting in one of my classes. One of my classmates is a bit of a jokester and brings up how he ate an entire loaf of French bread for lunch last week.)

Classmate: “Yeah, my parents got kind of mad about that.”

Teacher: “Well, that’s because it doesn’t seem very healthy.”

Classmate: “They weren’t mad at first when I told them. The reason they got mad was because later that day I made a whole bunch of croissants and ate the whole batch.”

(The whole class laughs, including the teacher.)

Teacher: “You need to get some protein into your diet.”

Classmate: “Yeah, I know. That’s why, for lunch today, I ate an entire package of salami.”

At 22, I decide to go back to college and get some much-needed A-Levels, since I have none.

During the length of my course, we cover numerous topics, including one on politics and government. Perhaps because I am older and therefore more aware of the things that go on in the world, I tend to find this class rather easy.

Perhaps one of the best moments is when I and the laziest member of the class are asked to do presentation on a political party. It just so happens we get the BNP, which, for those unaware, is a very right wing party in the UK that is associated with very racist ideals. I do all my slides, and at about 9:00 pm before the deadline, my partner calls me to admit he hasn’t done any work. I don’t really panic; I just stick in a few slides to cover his work and figure he can sink or swim.

The next morning, we give our presentation, and my tutor calls it the best of the lot and praises the content and the delivery.

The next year, the lazy classmate is not invited back for the second part of the course, and I have a conversation with my tutor, who explains that the current group hasn’t done anything near as good. I own up and admit that the lazy classmate didn’t do anything, and that I did it all.

The tutor responded, “Oh, I knew as soon as you stood up that he hadn’t done anything; he never handed in a single piece of coursework. I knew it was all your work and that he was just reading the info on the slides. All the praise was meant for you, because, honestly, that guy wouldn’t scratch his own a*** if he thought he could get someone else to do it for him.”

(I share a name with a few other girls in my grade.)

Girl #1: “Hey, [My Name]!”

Me and Girl #2: “Yeah?”

Girl #1: *staring me directly in the eyes* “It’s not you, you f****** attention w****. Why do you think it would ever be you? It’s always you! Just this once, it’s not you, and you can’t f****** deal with that, can you? You little b****, you just do whatever you want to do and grab whatever measly bits of attention you can scrounge up. Well, you know what? I don’t care. I truly don’t. You can go die in a hole, because it will never. Be. You.” *turns to [Girl #2]* “Anyway! [Classmate #1] is apparently dating [Classmate #2] now! Isn’t that fantastic?!”

Girl #2: “What the living f***, [Girl #1]?”

(I more or less walked away with my jaw on the ground. There’s gotta be a nicer way to tell a person you’re not talking to them.)

(An unused tampon has fallen out of someone’s backpack, and is now sitting on the floor. Most girls shuffle over it, but the guys jump away like it’s an unpinned grenade.)

Teacher: “Guys, go sit down!”

Guys: “There’s a tampon on the floor!”

Me: *picking it up* “It’s unused.”

Teacher: “Really, guys? Go sit.”

Guy #1: “Ew, you’re holding it?”

Girl #1: “That’s literally just a compressed cotton ball.”

Girl #2: “It hasn’t even touched a vagina.”

Teacher: “Can I see it?”

Guy #2: “This is f****** disgusting.”

Guy #3: “GROSS!”

Teacher: “Hey, [Girl #3], catch!”

(The girls in the classroom tossed it around before finally chucking it in the trash. The guys eventually sat down, and that teacher is still one of my favorites.)