The First Meme I Made

Respect was always a two-way road for me, I reciprocated others actions. Since I was overstimulated and the environment wasn't challenging me, I found a lot of time to fight with the adults of my high school educational system. I wasn't winning in anything.

I stopped buying yearbooks after grade 9, having put myself out there and somehow evading the pictures that made it in. I also had to ask my parents for the money which never came easy. I'd joined the school production: Peter Pan. I got the roll of the Lost Boy with the fewest lines. I'd laughed at the idea of being a Lost Boy, it seemed appropriate.

I wasn't surprised at the roll, I wasn't getting along with Sandy Toes. She was a librarian, French teacher, and took the reigns on school productions. When she wasn't catching me skipping out of class to hang in the library, we were often fighting during French class. I didn't have Facebook yet, nor knew what a meme was. I liked pulling off pranks though.

Now, I want to interject and say I don't condone body shaming. I'd say what I say to anyone not up to societies standards; it's really confidence that makes you attractive. This nerdy boy learned that one the hard way. The reality is that I'm a comedian, so I used the material available. Much like I joked about going crazy in high school, which wasn't really a joke. I saw Sandy Toes in an undersized shiny spandex suit at the exhibition, enough to scar that little boy. But hey, do you.

I found a picture on the internet of a petite lady leaning with one arm on a beached whale. She was smiling and I thought it was so weird. Whales were cool, girls were cool, but who wanted a picture with a dead one? I imagined the carcass was rotten enough that she fell right in. At first I shook my head and laughed at the lady taking a 'selfie', as they'd soon be called, with a dead, beached whale. I added the photo to the MS Paint program and added a caption. I figured I was only heading for an in-school suspension with this prank.

I couldn't stop laughing and printed a small stack of them. I had no shame, but respected the ladies privacy, I was going to need help posting my meme in their washrooms. That wasn't hard. A friend in my grade laughed and hung them in the junior girls washroom. I handed the rest off to my buddy Spenny who I'd met on the Improv team. He was in Grade 11, witty, and always down for shenanigans. He also found someone to put them in the senior girls washrooms. I posted the ones I could myself; above urinals and in the stalls.

It wasn't long before I was called down to the office. The bathroom looked like the FBI had been through, like they were dusting for fingerprints over a prank. People laughed and I bid them farewell, off to the Underworld of the Principles office. While it was one of my more crude pranks, it was also one I got away with.

Maybe it was because they'd ended up in every bathroom, maybe it was because no one felt the need to rat me out. I walked into the office like I didn't know what was going on. Like I hadn't heard about this meme that had been posted on the bathroom walls. I told them I didn't like using the school washrooms. Sweet, little old me couldn't possibly do such a thing, no matter how much I didn't like someone!

In Sandy Toes anger, she burst out and said she knew I'd hung them up in the boys washrooms' and somehow convinced a girl to do the same. She said it like I was the only one that didn't like her. I just held my ground and with my Classic Look of Disdain, told her she was nuts.

I stuck with an alibi I'd prearranged and held my ground. I knew they had no real evidence on me. Nothing but a poster with some crude humour on it. Albeit, humour that came off an awful lot like Little Jory's style. I didn't get an in-school suspension, but didn't get any brownie points with Sandy Toes either.