Comedy Corner

Note To The Reader: My parents are always telling me that my website is getting in the way with my school work. This is of course 100% true, seeing as how instead of taking notes in class, I spend my time writing stories about who is the whitest black person. When I wrote this article, my dad thought that I was studying for my English final, and I was. And even though this article is completely irrelevant to my English class, I also managed to sneak in a few of my vocabulary words to help spice it up a bit. The words are as follows: obsolete, decrepit, vociferous, solace, ominous, cogent, indomitable, supercilious, finite, presumption, disheveled. Feel free to call my retarded for having 4th grade vocab words. Now back to the story.

When I read comedy books like Dave Barry Talks Back I see that much comedy can be obtained from news articles as well as personal experience. In fact, the first story from Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus, Dave reflects on how he and his co-worker (who he protected the identity of by addressing him only as “Dan Le Batard”) went synchronized swimming. The article itself is hilarious but an even funnier picture is that of two 40-year-old men flailing violently in the water in a drastic attempt to survive.

My point is that in order to become a successful comedy writer, I am going to need to write about more than how stupid Goths are or how fun snow days can be. And since my life is a boring abyss filled with mediocre activities and repetitious schedules, I am forced to look upon the news.

I really don’t like newspapers. The small print and flimsy paper make them an inconvenience to read and if you even though about handling one your fingers automatically become covered in black crap. You’d think that in a time when men strut across the moon and cell phones fit in your ear, we would be able to discover some sort of newspaper ink that doesn’t destroy your hands. But until that point, I insist on getting all my news from TV and school gossip (“Oh my Gawd Jessica, did you hear that President Bush vetoed the abortion amendment again?!” “Scandalous!”).

Something I do read regularly, however, is Arlington High School’s own newspaper; written for the kids by the kids. It is called The Ponder Report (named cleverly after our school’s fierce and terrifying mascot, a Spy Ponder) and it is released every few months to update students on what’s going on in school. Headings like “Ms. Bouris Demanded Back” decorate the paper, as well as articles written by less educated writers titled “You Got Served Was Good Movie.” Regardless of who the publishers are or what they write, The Ponder Report gives students the chance to write what’s on their mind and gives AHS a sense of community. But more importantly, it allows students to exercise their right to freedom of the press, which is the only amendment Arlington High still grants its students.

Last week I was reading The Ponder Report when I saw an article written by Kerry Flynn. Kerry is in my Spanish class and I think I speak for everyone when I say that her educational structure is “lacking.” Yet even though her foreign language skills aren’t as strong as mine, she is quite the columnist. Kerry wrote an article titled “Bathrooms Look for Help” talking about the pitiful bathrooms in AHS. But before I make fun of Kerry’s editorial, I must first enlighten you on Arlington High School’s bathroom situation.

In a sentence, the AHS bathrooms would best be described as “not there.” The school itself has roughly 15 scattered throughout, but only four or five of them are actually unlocked. The other ones remain unused due to plumbing problems, electrical difficulties, or morbid amounts of vandalism. But! Little do people know that one day this year, a once-locked bathroom in one of the halls became mysteriously available. Hastily, I relieved myself in my new-found restroom to find that there were no chipped sinks or dented stalls; there were no shattered mirrors or carved walls. Oh sure there was a bit of destruction by some Led Zeppelin fans, but other than that the room was flawless. So if the bathrooms aren’t locked due to technical problems, why would the school close them? I have two theories:

Reason 1: The Phantom Pooper. The Phantom Pooper is not a myth. There is actually a kid who goes around Arlington High smearing the walls with his own feces. It happened six years ago, and a copy-cat vandal has continued the legacy. Last year I was approaching one of the rare unlocked bathrooms when a kid exiting it stopped me and warned, “look out for the shit on the ceiling.” I was hoping that by “shit” this kid meant something along the lines of a dripping pipe or a crumbling ceiling title, but when I walked in and looked up I was amazed to see that there was actually—and this is true—human feces smeared on the roof of the bathroom. Granted, it could have been human feces covering the ceiling (I hear camel crap is on sale at Wal-Mart), I’m really not sure. All I’m certain of is that the bathroom smelt horrible and I was scared to open my mouth.

Reason 2: Jim Stevens. Jim Stevens is not a student at Arlington High School. He is not a teacher, substitute, or even a creepy janitor. Yet even though he’s not a real person, his name is EVERYWHERE; especially in bathrooms. Jim Stevens is basically an alias. If you get in trouble, you say your name is Jim Stevens and then run away. The teacher will think that you’re a hooligan who writes on bathroom stalls, and you’re real identity remains veiled. And if any of the kids who support Jim Stevens can correct me on this presumption, please feel free to correct me by spray painting the real reason on a wall.

Those are really the only logical reasons I can think of as to why AHS would close their bathrooms. They’re scared that if one of the restrooms becomes unlocked, in a course of five hours it will be smeared in poop and have JIM STEVENS RULES all over it. Kerry Flynn did mention the troublesome task of locating an open bathroom at AHS, but she seemed to be more concerned about a problem I and most of the male students were completely unaware of: The Girl’s Room.

Most men, myself included, view the Girl’s Room as a lounge women visit to get away from guys. We envision it as a large space with high ceilings and good lighting, sparkling floors and marble sinks. Most girls don’t deny these rumors for one sole reason: they’re greedy bitches bent on satisfaction through deceptive lies. They figure that if we think their bathrooms are better than ours, we will treat them with respect. Us men, however, have already eliminated this entire idea by swearing never to respect a woman unless we owe them money or want to bone them. And since women are too blinded by their own arrogance to figure this out, they continue to lie about their bathroom situation like saying that they have a couch and Lazy Boy chairs

Thankfully, Kerry didn’t beat around the bush in her award-winning article and she directly addressed the equality of the disheveled bathrooms by saying:

“First, there are only several bathrooms in the school, which have locks on the doors that work. For instance, on the third floor, there are several stalls that do not lock. A person trying to use the bathroom needs a friend to hold the door shut.”

There it is fellows. The truth. We now know why girls go to the bathroom in groups of 17. They don’t mischievously gossip about their date/boyfriend/weight/missed period etc., they simply help one another crap.

Girl 1: Are you almost done in there? My arm is getting tired.

Girl 2: Oh shut up and stop complaining, I’m almost done. Just hold the door closed.

Girl 1: I think the rust on the door is getting under my nails and staining the bracelet Debbie gave me.

Girl 2: Oh my God, did you hear what Debbie did to her mom’s car?

Girl 1: No, and I really don’t care. My wrist hurts from holding the door and I want to leave.

**Girl leave the bathroom and rejoin their dates at the table**

Guy 1: What were girls doing in there?

Girls: Oh, just . . . talking . . . *giggle*giggle*

Once again, the girls use the art of trickery to try to out-rank the man their role in the relationship. They make the men think that they were gossiping about them when they were actually helping the other person crap. You lying whores.

Next, Kerry mentioned the amount of graffiti in the schools:

“While using the bathrooms, some people find it necessary to post whom they “love” or whom they “hate” on the walls. What is even worse is that people respond to the postings and there are sometimes responses to [those] postings. Unfortunately, these acts of vandalism are constant and very costly.”

Oh yeah Kerry, it’s unimaginably expensive to have people clean off a bathroom wall. It’s not like we have people we specifically employ to keep our schools clean, oh no! We must be forced to hire a high-class cleaning team to rid our restrooms of graffiti and that could cost the school thousands of dollars which would, in turn, raise taxes. They’re called janitors dumbass.

What Kerry “Dumbass” Flynn was referring to was the type of graffiti found in Middle School bathrooms. This form of personal expression was used in 7th grade when a deep feeling of lust for a specific person (also known as a “crush”) could last for up to 6 days! In my school everyone was also to keep track of the finite crushes by taking a trip to the restroom and reading the wall. The wall was a place where love-struck 7th graders carved who they loved into the stall. Periodic amendments and additions in the wall kept every bathroom-goer at the peak of social gossip.

High School bathrooms are not filled with cute little hears or supercilious rebuttals, but are stricken with indomitable statements and cogent ideas, the majority of which are racist. In my two years of high school experience, I have seen my fair share of vandalism, but my favorite must be one I read this year in the second floor bathroom which read:

Snitches get stitches

“Snitches get stitches” is a famous statement at AHS. It may seem confusing, but it is simply a less verbose way of saying that people who rat out others get beat up. Essentially, a “snitch” is the high school version of a tattle tale. And when people in Arlington claim that snitches get stitches, we are simply saying that we wish we were black. Normally an ominous statement like that would go unnoticed by other people, except for addition another student made:

Snitches get stitches shot where I’m from

Uh-oh. You what that means: someone in Arlington is carries a gun. Or worse, someone wants us to think that he carries a gun where in reality he listens to Ashley Simpson. No one Arlington has ever shot anyone. Not once has a snitch gotten stitches, shot, or even hit. The only solace someone can find in reading this vociferous vandalism is that you now know that you have a bigger penis than that kid.

Lastly, Kerry was ballsy enough to bring up the extremely controversial subject of bathroom hygiene. She reported:

“My final issue with the facilities in this school is the lack of toilet paper, paper towels, and hand washing soap.”

It is very true that the majority of the AHS bathrooms have little—if any—toiletries. On many occasions students have had to deal with their unwiped asses by cleaning it with their homework, trying to shake it out over the toilet, or—on a rare occasion—smearing it all over the walls. I do not suffer from this problem on account of my Universal School Bathroom Code.

Universal School Bathroom Code- If you take a crap in the school bathroom, you’re a queer and should be pelted with baseballs.

Because of this rule, I have never pooped in a school bathroom and therefore have never had to deal with wiping my ass (but if I was ever faced with the dilemma, I would probably use a freshman).

The hand-washing dilemma is always hard in public schools because most kids find unprecedented humor in pasting paper towels to the wall by suing hand soap. Although this does decorate the restroom with a comforting beige mood, it decreases the supplies for actually cleaning yourself. And while girls are up in arms bitching about how they need softer cloth to dry their delicate fingers, men have eliminated the hygiene problem by just not washing our hands in general. Our care-free method saves us time and lets us get back to class sooner in order to receive a getting education. We don’t fritter away our time locating the sink, turning on the decrepit faucet, washing our hands, trying to word those obsolete hand-blow-dryer things, and then leaving. It’s simply shake, zip, leave. Kerry made a specific point to target people like us:

“It is disgusting to know people can not wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. Not only are their hands dirty, but they then touch a door handle, a desk, a text book, and hundreds of other students also come in contact with these objects after.”

This may be true Kerry, but you’re one to hypocritically point fingers seeing as how more than enough dirty hands have touched your “door handle,” something that hundreds of other students have also come in contact with. [BURNED]

Even though I rag on Kerry, she is right. School bathrooms need to be taken better care of. Everyone knows that you can’t prevent students from vandalizing restrooms, but you can make an effort to clean them more. Routine check ups by janitors would bring attention to missing toiletries and broken stalls. We need to take a stand. We should make signs! We should sign petitions! We should REBEL! Start destroying broken toilets, flood clogged sinks, and carve the name of every crush you’ve ever had on the walls! We will riot until our demands are met! And when the authorities ask who we are, we’re Jim Stevens.

Goths. We all hate them, but we can’t do anything about it. They are allowed to walk among us, polluting the public scenery and rebelling against everything possible without penalties. Many citizens have actually moved due to the large Goth population in their neighborhood, only to discover that Goths are everywhere and that they will soon govern this country. So how do we expel these people from our great nation? How do we rid our rich soil of these wrist-slitting offenders? First, we must find out what makes a Goth so dangerous to society.

The word “Goth” is derived from the biblical term “Gothic,” which means “Someone who should be shot.” In many books of the bible, Goths are mentioned enslaving the Jews, crucifying Jesus, and destroying the world. In fact, few people know that the word “Armageddon” is Gothic for “picnic.”

Two thousand years ago, when the bible took place, the Goth population was very small. There were only four of five Goths in all of West Asia, and they were usually too busy cutting their thighs to do anything productive. Nowadays, however, scientists predict that there are over 110 million Goths nation-wide; all producing enough blood from their thighs to fill Lake Champlain. They can be seen buying food from public grocery stores, playing sports on public fields, and roaming the halls of public schools. Their unhinged attitude and lack of self-control is spreading freely around America, and it needs to be stopped.

You’re probably wondering why I can make all of these ridiculous assumptions and stereotypes about the Goth community and speculate that they are the downfall of America. Well the sad truth is that I know more about Goths than anyone ever should. I have been living with a Goth for about 2 years now, and I have been observing his lifestyle in an attempt to understand them better. I guess you could say that I’m the Jane Goodall of Goths. In my studies I found out how one becomes Goth, what Goths do to out-rank each other, and how to distinguish between a Goth and a Punk Rocker. And through my famed publicity of this world-renown blog, I am going to share my findings with the world.

My brother became Goth a little less than 2 years ago. He may have wanted to transfer earlier but was not provided the opportunity because there was no tragedy. This is because the only way to become Goth is to suffer a hardship in your life. Generally, it’s a family death, abusive childhood, or alcoholic parent that drives you to become Goth, but some desperate wannabes call upon less extreme afflictions such as list earrings, bad dream, sour milk, etc. It is essential that your Gothic lifestyle begins with a tragedy or else you will be referred to as a “poser.” A poser in the Goth community is the lowest of the low. He is hated by everyone and everything and is never allowed to show his mascara-covered face again. Typical posers will not admit to being one, but can also never give you a legitimate reason as to why they are Goth. Not that it matters; all reasons for being Goth are bullcrap because the only time you should be allowed to hate life is if you have the same career, publicity, and name as Andy Dick.

The main question folks ask is why people become Goth. Why would someone want to be hated by everyone? Why would they choose to be the lowest species on the social ladder—below above anime-lovers—when everything was going fine before? The answer is simple: attention. Oh sure, they may have had a shred of dignity before their traumatic accident (getting a C+ on a math test), but no one was really looking at them. But now that they’re Goth, people not only look at them, they call them horrid names and throw rocks at them too!

Okay, I’m getting a little too worked up; let me slow down. When someone becomes Goth, people ask him why. What he really wants to say is “because I’m an attention-craving loser who wants people to look at him no matter what the cost,” but instead he will preach something along the lines of “because I don’t agree with the cliques and images the media drives into our head. Every year the government puts millions of dollars into telling us what to do, what to wear, and what to say. People who were once so free to think what they want have been brainwashed by the subliminal messages they see daily. Earth is no longer a place to appreciate nature, but rather a storm of marching clones who all wear what their told, say what their told, and have never once gone against the rules. We let other people determine what is cool; we let other people shape our images, and it’s not right.”

The Goth kid will continue this rant until you hit him in the head with a desk. In my years of study, I have learned that when you ask a Goth a question, you should warn him in advance that if he exceeds the 20 second answer limit, he will be quartered. But I’m getting off track.

Goth people claim that they are against the images driven into society’s head that make everyone look the same. If that is the idea they’re rebelling against, why do all Goths look the same? Why are the people denouncing “public cloning” all dressing in black pants and wearing dark makeup? I’ll tell you why: they’re stupid liars. Goths are too thickheaded to realize that their alibi is hypocritical and doesn’t make sense. By all stating that they’re against cliques, they’ve created their own clique!

Another example is anarchists. These people claim to be against group rules and leaders, yet they assemble. And when they do assemble, they obviously have someone in charge (a leader) and guidelines to follow (rules). The only way to be a true anarchist is to literally do everything people tell you not to do while you individually do around breaking rules; also known as an asshole.

My point is that you can’t trust Goths because everything they say is a lie. They’re too mindless to get their made up reason straight, not recognizing the fact that an anti-group crowd is still a group, regardless of how retarded the members are.

Once a person has achieved the amount of attention they wanted by becoming Goth, they only thing they can do is maintain it by performing ridiculous acts. Basically anything that gets you negative attention will work when you’re a Goth, the most popular being dressing in all black all the time. Other methods include not ever showering, wearing heavy pants in the summer, listening to deafening music, and—in extreme cases—becoming a lesbian. There really isn’t anything radical and extreme you can do to become Super Goth because all Goths so the same thing, hence the social-grouping they’re so hypocritically against. If a Goth actually wanted to be against what all the other Goths were doing, he would wear rainbow overalls and sing I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts while picking dandelions in his backyard (also known as Andy Dick).

My brother, who was the main specimen in this study, has taken many of the usual steps to becoming Goth. Thankfully he still showers every night, but he has grown his hair out and dyed it black. He always dresses in black jeans, even in the midst of summer, and he wears the same clothes every day. I’m partial to think that this is due to his decaying brain tissue after watching the “I Love New York Marathon”, but inside I know it’s because he’s Goth. No matter the reason, he will not change or wash his clothes. He thinks that just because he showers he won’t smell like a litter box when he puts on his sweaty, crusty sweatshirt. And because I share a room with him, I will return from school to find my room smelling like an asshole.

Another huge thing Goths pretend to do is overdose on pills. I say “pretend” because the only people who OD on pills are heart-broken middle schoolers and rock stars. Most—normal—people stay far away from pills, but Goths worship them. They think that ODing on pills is the coolest thing anyone could ever do. This is not true because in Episode 43 of “Walker Texas Ranger”, I saw Chuck Norris actually punch a man so hard that all of the man’s immediate family died, and the majority of his other relatives were diagnosed with massive malignant tumors. I’m really not sure what makes overdosing so cool; maybe the fact that you’re willing to risk your life to get a high, or that you’ve finally found a use for an overstock of Tylenol. My brother told all his friends that our family got an overstock of prescription medicine and that he would get high whenever he wanted. This may be true, but it doesn’t disregard the fact that he dances in the shower to Kelly Clarkson.

But the most popular activity for Goths to do is to cut themselves. In a way, the amount a person cuts can determine how Goth they are, which, in turn, can show you how much attention they want. Sure, they might claim that the cuts release tension that is built up inside of them from their traumatic experience (forgetting their lunchbox on the school bus). Hell, they might even go as far as to say that each cut represents a horrible adversity they had to overcome (untied shoelace, pulpy orange juice, their CD skipping, etc.). My personal favorite is that “I cut myself just to see if I’m still alive” crap. But no matter what they tell you, the only real reasons Goths cut themselves is to show off their scars.

Depending on where you cut, there are many different ways to show off your grotesque scars. The most common place is the wrist, which is probably the best area to cut because it’s not like there are any major veins there. If you do slit your wrist, the thing to do is wear a sweat band for a few months until the scab goes away and you have a nice clean scar. During these months you will truly feel like an idiot when things like sweat, dust and fabric get into your wound and infect it. But when you’re all healed, you “forget” your sweat band and “accidentally” place your hand right in front of your friends face. Then when he confronts you about it, you make up some elaborate story about how you were in a bad mood so you got high and cut it with a sharpened fork while injecting ecstasy into your arm, where in reality you were doing it crying on your bathroom floor with a sock in your mouth to smother the pathetic screams of agony. Retard.

Once the word gets around school that you cut yourself and everyone thinks that you’re a psychotic loose cannon, you can sit back and enjoy the attention. However, you must make sure that your parents don’t find out you cut yourself, or your 15 minutes of fame could turn into 4 years of therapy, random drug tests, and a dick-head shrink.

Now that you know what causes people to become Goth and how to distinguish one, you can help me in my fight against them. With your help I can prevent Goths from actually making a name for themselves and keep them at the lowest point in society. How do we do it? Listen carefully.

WARNING: The following not only contains math, but also includes explicit notions of viciously murdering all Goths by throwing their limp bodies onto a massive bon fire and parading around it. Although I suppose all the toxic smoke from unwashed clothes would increase Global Warming.

On my street there are a total of three Goths. My brother, whose traumatic experience was a divorce two years ago; his friend, whose traumatic experience is being Puerto Rican, and his ex-girlfriend who is a poser. That is three Goths for every street. I figure there are roughly 50 million streets in America; each one having three Goths makes 150 million Goths worldwide. Subtract 40 million for margin of error (some places in America only have a population of 15 people, like, for example, Wyoming) leaves 110 million Goths in our country.

This number is devastating and should be dropped as soon as possible. And with half of all marriages ending in divorce, wannabe Goths are getting more legitimate reasons to turn Goth. So how do we prevent the increase of these Goths? We need to take drastic measures. North Dakota has already allowed the execution of Goths without trial, which is probably against four or five of our Constitutional rights, but it’s alright. Unfortunately we cannot do that here on the East Coast, so we have to do things on a smaller scale. That is why I propose right now that whenever you see a Goth, you punch him in the face and steal his bike. I have been using this approach for seven months now, and I feel that if we all work together we can scare Goths into extinction. And when they’re bleeding from the head and drifting in and out of consciousness, we strip them of their clothes and make them run naked on the freeway. Then, as a final scare tactic we give them white clothes.

I know it sounds extreme, but it’s a risk I am willing to take. I hope my studies have helped you realize your place in life, and have hopefully opened your eyes to the horror of Gothic bastards. I hope in time all of America will adopt North Dakota’s method of punishment, but until then we must fight alone. So gather up your bats, sharpen your swords, and turn on your washing machine. Goths are going down.