I previously thought that I had pretty good perspective on being a middle school student. After all, I spent two year of my life in the middle of it.

As I spend more time with them as an outside observer instead of an active participant, I’m beginning to realize that what little I thought that I knew about being 12 from when I was 12 was badly skewed and misinterpreted by my tiny undeveloped brain.

First of all, I’m glad that I was a boy, and never a girl. Boys fight a little bit and then once pecking order is established, everyone is more or less cool. Girls are evil, vicious little fucks. They do weird, mean, spiteful shit to each other, and once pecking order is established, they keep doing weird, mean, spiteful shit. They will dedicate hours and hours of time to developing careful, elaborate schemes to do mean things to each other. It’s like watching hyenas fight over the remains of a carcass.

Second of all, it takes a completely different skill set to sit at the top of the social chain in middle school than it does anywhere else. It helps to be a talented athlete and good looking, which is pretty much the same as any age group, but whereas before and after middle school it really helps to be friendly, outgoing, funny and charismatic, in middle school it seems to primarily be about sticking out as little as possible and really lashing out at anyone that does in any way, shape or form. It’s funny, because one of the questions that I had them answer on a quiz about a book we’re reading right now asked them to compare and contrast the importance of conformity in our society and in the book’s society, and everyone was vehement about the importance of individuality in ours. Yet every time that I watch them interact, there’s nothing more terrifying to them than wearing a piece of clothing that someone might consider uncool, or liking a band that someone else doesn’t like, or even thinking that a joke is funny if someone else doesn’t. What’s really important to get ahead in social circles in 7th grade is to be completely unimpressed with anything that anyone says, roll your eyes and say “oooo-kay….” a lot and make that face where you raise your eyebrows and half smirk to make that expression that either says “I can’t believe that you said something that stupid!” or “I’m pushing out a pretty serious log right now.”

So why don’t I quit and work with students that I consider human?

First of all, they pay me.

Second of all, even though some of the kids are epic d-bags, some of the kids are awesome.

I have one that has the most devastating case of ADD that I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s constantly out of his seat doing the robot, yelling “ballin’!” and singing songs that he’s too young to know. I can tell that he doesn’t want to flip out, but he just can’t quite control himself. I know that I should be yelling at him and telling him to sit down, but when I look up and he’s popping and locking around the room singing “Blinded by the Light” and screaming “Ballin’!, I end up cracking up while I’m trying to pretend that I’m angry.

Yesterday he and some other kids were talking about bear attacks, and I pointed out to them that macing a bear is more effective than shooting it. “You know what’s more effective than that?” He asked me. “You jump on it’s back, wrap your arm around it’s neck, put it in an arm bar, ‘pow’! ‘pow’! punch it once or twice in the kidney and then ‘bam’. Problem solved.” The more that he discussed it, the more excited he got to actually wrestle a bear. I had to spend 30 minutes after that reading a few chapters from a very somber book to the class, and I kept having to bite my lip to keep from cracking up imagining a 12 year old neutralizing a bear with his bare hands.

THAT is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

BALLIN’!

I had a really wild dream two nights ago involving Dan, Van Halen, The Karate Kid and a little touch of Silence of the Lambs.

Allow me to elaborate.

So there I was, in the dream, watching MTv with Dan.

They were showing a Van Halen video. Not a real Van Halen video, but one that my brain was making up while I was asleep.

There came a part in the video where the camera was showing a train rolling by. The camera was rolling along with the train, and the camera moved forward a few cars, revealing David Lee Roth. He was hanging off of the side of the train, facing the camera and singing the lyrics to the song, looking very macho in a 1980′s-hair-metal-lead-singer kind of way.

His wardrobe was a leather vest and some stupid looking sunglasses.

That was it. Other than that, he was completely naked.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: David Lee Roth singing and hanging off the edge of a train, naked? That’s a little bit too risque, even for MTv!

I know, right?

But Diamond Dave had come up with a most elegant solution to that problem. There was nothing inappropriate on camera, because he had cleverly tucked his penis between his legs so that you couldn’t see it on camera.

At that point, the dream was pretty funny to me. David Lee Roth was doing some over-the-top 1980′s sex symbol posturing which involved a leather vest, some sunglasses, and a pair of tightly clenched thighs.

So then, in the dream, Dan turns to me.
“You see what he’s doing there?” Dan asked, referring to David Lee Roth’s hidden wang.
“That’s what you call ‘Cobra Kai-ing it’.”

This is the point where I started laughing hard enough to wake myself up.

It’s one of the more awesome dreams that I’ve ever had.

First of all, a lot of dreams lose their oomph when you wake up and think about them. A dream that seemed terrifying, important or incredibly sad while you’re asleep usually ends up just feeling absurd when you wake up and think about it. Not this one. It was funny while I was asleep, and it’s been funny to me ever since.

Second of all, it’s completely plausible. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with David Lee Roth, so let me just fill you in: He’s insane. Here are some pictures of him:

That should be more than enough to convince you, but let me really drive the point home with this video. Diamond Dave doesn’t even show up in the video until 1:32, and since I can’t get any of you assholes to even watch the first 10 seconds of an embedded video, it seems unlikely that you’ll do this, but if you do, I promise that it will totally be worth your while (as long as you consider buttless chaps “worth your while”):

Do you see what I mean? After viewing the evidence, I would almost say that it’s more implausible that David Lee Roth DIDN’T actually make a music video that featured him hanging off of a train while Cobra Kai’n it in a pair of sunglasses and an engineer’s hat.

But not only was it a great dream, I learned a new word in the process that’s going to save me time and energy. When I’m telling a friend about Silence of the Lambs, I can simply tell them “And then the crazy guy puts on some lipstick, puts some woman’s scalp on his head and starts dancing in front of the mirror while Cobra Kai’n it,” or, “I had to pee so bad during my 4th block! I was Cobra Kai’n it through the entire lesson!”

I’m not really sure how to end this post so…uh…here’s a video tutorial on how to do the moonwalk.

Happy Spring Break.