When you were a teenager did you do anything that marked you in the adult community as a bad kid? Did you ever manage to change people's minds? Did you even care about what they thought?

-- Mo (Moira@diarist.net), July 29, 1999

Answers

Oi.

Well, let's just say it involved two *very* stupid 14-year-old girls with *very* limited drinking experience, a house that one of the girls was housesitting for that had a full bar, some young guys who were working on the house next door, some weed provided by said guys, getting caught by my mother, my ending up in the hospital with an iv in my arm and a young cop scowling down at me who kept saying, "Don't ever get in a car when you're like this," my friend coming up with some pretty outrageous lies to cover our asses which resulted in our parents submitting (unbeknownst to them) false police reports, my friend recanting the next morning (I wasn't conscious for any of that part), and my being grounded for most of the rest of the year.

My father wouldn't talk to me for several days--I don't think he was deliberately giving me the silent treatment but it was more like he just couldn't bring himself to talk to me he was so angry.

Anyway...I flew straight as an arrow after that (at least until I got into college).

To this day I can't stomach Jack Daniels (which of course is what we were drinking. Stupid, stupid, stupid).

So...I guess I don't entirely blame all the parents who didn't want me babysitting their kids once that lovely story got around the neighborhood.

But I'm a productive member of society now! Really!

-- Mo (Moira@diarist.net), July 30, 1999.

No, I was a perfect teenager. The question that is begging to be asked is: What exactly did you do at age 14 to earn your reputation as a bad seed?

-- J2 (rirams@hotmail.com), July 29, 1999.

I agree, what in the hell did you do?

-- Tracey (Camrx@aol.com), July 29, 1999.

Three's the charm, Moira. Confess all and you'll feel better - really (well, you'll fill better until someone comes up with a way to use your confession against you but don't let that stop you)

-- Jai (jaimystery@aol.com), July 30, 1999.

Well, since Moira is an editor for a living she might not like this one too much.

All through highschool right up to my senior year I was in that snotty little group of students that most of the teacher's liked, you know, the "honors" clique.

Well, senior year I signed up for yearbook so I could slack off, err, I mean help edit copy.

One day a buddy and I were screwing around with the names captions underneath photos. We changed people's names to titles we thought were more fitting. Principal Imclueless Johnson. Mr. Imcometoworkdrunk Smith, Science teacher. tee hee. We save for our personal amusement. The next day we change back ALL the names to the right captions.

Or so we thought.

Months roll by and a couple weeks before we graduate, the yearbooks get published and handed out to the students. And lo and behold, much to my horror, I found a name we had forgot to change back. In the cheerleading section, we had replaced one of the girl's first name with the word "bitch," so the caption read "Bitch lastname."

2000 yearbooks all with the same caption error, and nothing to be done about it.

I had to personally apologize to the girl, and pay for her yearbook. I'm lucky I didn't get sued. But the worst part of the whole deal was that suddenly, I had 0 friends. I was ostracized from the smart kid elite clique that I had been in for three years. I havent spoken to or seen any of them since.

And I never did anything to redeem myself. What could I have done? Instead, I escaped to a college a couple thousand miles away, where no one knew me.

The whole thing was stupid, I was stupid, and everyone thought I was slime. Yeah, at the time I think I cared what people thought. But this was six years ago, and much has changed.

oh, and btw Hello Moira, my name's Kevin and I stumbled onto your journal through the pussies journal burb. I like this question feature a lot.

cheers, kevin

-- kevin andmylastnameisnotimportant (stylycho@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999.

Ok Mo.

I agree with the readers above. What DID you do to make the neighborhood deem you a bad seed?

-- Amy (ferris13@hotmail.com), August 04, 1999.