Mike the Jehovah's Witness

Mike was probably my best friend at my high school. We had a lot of classes together, but we got most bored in government class.

Mike had a little watch that didn't have a band; instead, it Velcroed to the inside of his binder. We'd start class each day by Mike placing the Mafia watch in the pencil tray, as we sang, 'Mafia Mafia Mafia'.

We drew pictures. We drew pictures of Mr Miller, our health teacher, patronizing Lazy Joe's Used Food Store. One time, Sra Stevens, our Spanish teacher, was gone and we had a sub. The sub passed around an attendance sheet. We signed our names, but added names for some people who were technically not in our class, like Amanda Hugginkiss and Mike Rotch and Lazy Joe. Sra Stevens teased us about this when she got back. 'Who is Lazy Joe?' Mike and I mumbled something about Lazy Joe's Used Food Store. Sra Stevens was disgusted. Brian said, 'Yeah, you know Lazy Joe's Used Food Store, it's in Aberdeen, out on Paradise Avenue.'

One time, Mr Miller had a substitute, and Mike was taking his class at that point. The substitute was lax and let the students go through Mr Millers cabinets. The sub had a very fine beard. Some of the students found vaseline and rubber gloves. After that, I would say, 'Hey, Mike, I hear that Mr Miller's breaking out his vaseline and rubber gloves.' 'I bet he's going to grease down the floor. Wheeeeee!'

Mike and I rode the bus together. That was scary. Our bus driver, Miss Doris, would stretch her fingers when the bus was stopped, in such a way that we presumed that her hands had arthritis. We were sure that eventually her hands would fall apart and the steering wheel would slip and the bus would careen into a ravine.

Richard rode the bus, too. One time, he sprayed me with Victoria's new perfume. Sometimes he threatened me with violence.

Mike tells me that, the year after I quit high school, they were riding the bus to school, and Richard was throwing trash out the window for no reason. Trash! Like a disposable water bottle and paper towels. Miss Doris' bus was stopped next to another bus at a stoplight, and the driver of the other bus rolled down his window, and told Miss Doris that someone on her bus was throwing trash out the window. Miss Doris yelled, 'RRRRRICHARD!'.

Mike and I went to the tech high school; this school was populated primarily by losers, so when I say that we ate at the loser table in the cafeteria, this means that we were the losers that lost out on even being losers. I would buy the school lunch once a week. One time, I got macaroni and cheese. I scooped a hole in the macaroni, poured in ketchup at the condiment station, then covered the hole over with more macaroni. When I returned to the loser table, I stabbed the macaroni and my friends were amused to see it bleed.