Never Been Kissed (the movie) and My Echo

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Greetings all.

While I visited af last week, he happened to have the TV on and that Drew Barrymore flick happened to be playing. I hadn't realized how much I was still affected by that decades-past chapter in my life until seeing that film. Although it's just another romantic comedy, there are parts I saw through its far-fetched façade that I found just as unsettling as watching the school scenes at the beginning of Forrest Gump.

So I rented the DVD, ran it a few times, and got facing some old demons. I also read some of the reviews about NBK. One critic commented on that movie being impossible to relate to even to the most socially inept person. I'll correct that with these words: unless you are an Aspie. Another critic commented that no viewer could see that flick without some ringing of the memory bell. I'll second that one.

DING DING-DING DING DING... DING DING

Movie scene:
Drew Barrymore plays Josie Geller, a copy editor for a Chicago newspaper. She gets an assignment to infiltrate a high school and get the story on what today's kids are like. Josie was never one of the "in" crowd in her high school experience. She was a clueless nerd (or an Aspie?) during her time there. She wore braces, had greasy hair, was clumsy, and nicknamed "Josie Grossie" in her day. Her wardrobe could have come from a Salvation Army thrift store.
My echo:
I did my HS years from 1975 to 1980 in a small mining town, population about 10,000. It was a close-knit community where a reputation was known all over town as well as in school. My NN was “Spike” after that clumsy young character in the Happy Days series. Another classmate nicknamed me “Nabisco” and it wasn’t until years later I’d clue in to the connotation when I saw the male and female symbols alongside a Nabisco logo on a bumper sticker. Asperger’s syndrome never re-entered the medical picture until around 1980. I was still unDX’d and there was no understanding of the condition then. Also, I was always physically clumsy. Clothing-wise, I was actually always dressed spiffily, especially through my senior years. My summer job earnings were what paid for my wardrobes. OTOH, I had the awfulest acne you could imagine. It made me look more like a pizza than a human

Josie’s experience:
Josie was the object of much taunting and jeering in the hallways. She has a flashback of the time a student planted a toilet paper roll in her pack (with 20 or more squares streaming behind) and another poured a soft drink in there, producing an effect that made it look like she was peeing herself. It is that part of the movie that made me relive my HS days like it was my own video clip playing in my mind’s eye.
My experience:
The hallways were a veritable human minefield for me. I’ve had “Kick Me” signs pasted on my back, got constantly shoved and pushed, got slammed into lockers, sometimes got tripped and kicked, had apple cores thrown at me, and the teachers who stood at the doorways of their classrooms between sessions always looked the other way. OTOH, I once dared to come up behind and kick the books out from under the arm of one of my known aggressors. A teacher who saw that intercepted me and with a thundering, booming voice that was heard throughout the campus and halfway through town, he roared: TO THE OFFICE! Each and every student that was in the hallways froze and looked. Go figure. It was alright for them to do it, but not alright for me to fight back or make a pre-emptive attack.


Movie scene:
Upon entering the campus, Josie is intercepted by a security guard who holds her up and confiscates her nail file saying: “this is a weapon”.
My echo:
There was never any security like that in my time. People snuck in all sorts of contraband items seemingly with impunity.

Movie scene:
Josie is late showing up for her first class session after being held up by the security guard. The teacher shows neither understanding nor any compassion and ridicules her in front of the class. She is made to wear a sombrero and is forced to tell every body about herself. Unprepared, she stammers and the words come out wrong. 2 girls make snide remarks about her clothes, commenting on how “about 5 chickens had to die so she could look so stupid”.
My echo:
My English teacher, “The Executioner”, had me go to the front of the class and write the numbers 1 to 10 on the blackboard. He then proceeded to get the class to participate in answering the 10 Q’s he had given for an assignment about Wuthering Heights in a way he would have liked to see, and had me write them on the board. The Executioner then made a spectacular display (entertaining for the class, humiliating for me) exposing my answers I had submitted and openly condemned me about “having handed in my ‘cheat sheet’”. For many weeks following, I was the laughing stock of the school. Another English teacher I had, "Mr Clean" also paraded me in the class on a regular basis. One day, they’ll read about themselves in my book.

Movie scene:
Josie goes to find a seat in the next classroom she goes to. She is immediately surrounded by 3 girls who tersely say: “we sit here”. Josie explains: “I’m sorry; I didn’t know those seats were signed”. They retort: “they’re not”.
My echo:
I had the same sort of thing happen as if there was a secret, unspoken and unwritten code about where to take a seat and where not to in your first show-up. I could never figure it out.

Movie scene:
Josie correctly answers the teacher Sam Coulson’s Q about “pastoral". Somebody at the back starts bleating like a sheep.
My echo:
Damned if you did, damned if you didn’t. Being a “brain” earned nicknames like “scab”, “egg head” or “teacher’s pet”. Being dumb got you branded a “tool”. I was both. There was no escaping the verbal onslaughts especially if you were “different”.

Movie scene:
Josie orders her lunch in the cafeteria and continues ineptly to acquaint with her new school mates.
My echo:
I rarely ever set foot in the caf and never ate in there. I couldn't stand the noise and chaos. I was lucky in that my home was within walking distance of the school and I always had lunch there

Movie scene:
The Phys-Ed teacher warns Josie: “fail the fitness test and you’re never going to college”.
My echo:
Much of the grading in Phys-Ed was based on ability to perform athletically. My trump cards were the endurance sports and the theory stuff.

Movie scene:
At the end of her first school day, Josie goes to look for her car but a gang known as Guy Parkins and His Amazing Lemmings pushed it “out into space” to watch her look for it.
My echo:
I never drove a car or rode a bike to HS. I just knew better.

Movie scene:
It turns out that Josie is a very good mathematician. Through her new-found friend, Aldys, she is offered to join The Denominators, a nerdy-brainy group that is also pretty much isolated from the school’s main stream. There she finds the acceptance and respect she’d always wanted.
My echo:
I was an artist / illustrator for my HS’s French newspaper. It was the only group with whom I found any acceptance and respect. OTOH, the Track & Field team simply tolerated me, no Q’s asked.

Movie scene:
Josie has a flashback of her invitation to her Prom. She is ecstatic about “Billy” inviting her but it turns out he has a cruel joke up his sleeve. Billy and his actual date gave Josie a drive-by egg-pelting as she waited for him at her door.
My echo:
I didn’t bother going to that. I was too unpopular anyway. My finishing HS was for me a liberation from a strange, snake-filled prison camp.

Movie scene:
Aldys, Josie, and another from The Denominators pull up to an outdoor drinking and doing drugs party some of the students are having after hours, called The Court. A young man intercepts them and snarls: “Dog Park is ‘this way’, go!” Aldys argues: “last time I checked, this was a free country”. He retorts: “you’re not seriously trying to hang out with The Court, Aldys. Why don’t you go home, fickle around on your calculator, figure out how many lifetimes it’s gonna take you to get cool?”
My echo:
I stumbled upon something like that coming around a corner while walking home from working at a bingo hall on a Friday night. A young man who was a classmate intercepted me and grabbed me by the lapels. His breath reeked of a licorice liqueur. With a deft flick of his foot and a firm shove, he sent me flying backward in the snow. A few months later, that same guy cracked up his mother’s car while out driving recklessly and it was my turn to LMAO: “Hey ________ how’s your mother’s car?” HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA . Revenge was sweeter than the liqueur he had that night.

Movie scene:
Josie goes to a teen party and at the door she gets her hand stamped with the name DELOSER. It is a school night. She tries to fit in but is again rejected by those 3 girls that have rejected her repeatedly. 3 “friendly” gentlemen in dreadlocks invite her to sit on their sofa with them. That part is far-fetched with its openness, that strange-looking pipe, and its blatant honesty, but this is a romantic comedy and not about intoxicants. They offer her a piece of chocolate ganja cake “with vitamins T, H, and C”. Soon, the drug takes effect and she makes quite a spectacle of herself and falsely believes herself to have made the transition. Back home Josie falls asleep at the counter and the ink from the stamp on her hand transfers the letters LOSER on her forehead overnight. She comes to school the next day with that word on her forehead, openly greets everybody she meets in the hallways but is taunted with louder and louder jeering as well as all kinds of strange looks. Josie doesn’t clue in to the mark on her forehead until she sees it in the mirror in the girls’ room.
My echo:
I got introduced to the wacky tobacky through a buddy that I knew well enough and trusted enough that I’d allow it. He also worked at the same bingo hall as I and that’s how we met. Alcohol was also sometimes had through his connection and if anything, it added insult to injury in that I disgraced myself terribly with it. I’ll leave out the sordid details.

Movie scene:
With the help of her brother Rob who also infiltrates the HS, just knows how to be popular, and goes around bragging how cool she really is, Josie makes the transition and is accepted in the mainstream of the clique. She ends up being elected Prom Queen. From there on, the movie winds down to its conclusion in a far-fetched way like any romantic comedy.
My echo:
I never got that one figured out. I didn’t have a manual for that My buddy from the bingo hall scolded me countless times about all the social blunders I committed but there was always too much for me to remember. For me, it was another science unto itself.

Post anything you'd like to say about this movie or any other with a high school theme to it.

Papillon

It can all be summed up in one word:

Ditto.