Every high school class has a kid in it who plays really dumb tricks because he thinks he’s just so unbelievably cool. You remember him, probably, as a tail-less monkey without much hair. Or, at best, the Klass Klown–and how wonderful it is that you haven’t seen or heard from him in 30 years!
One such klass klown got into the national news recently–yes, you read that right: “national news,” like presidents and movie stars–when his Pennsylvania high school had Miss America as their guest at an assembly ( http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pennsylvania-teen-suspended-america-prom-school-assembly-article-1.1761713 ). School administrators got wind of his plan to ask Miss America to be his prom date. They took him aside and told him not to do it. Heck, the gag has been pulled a zillion times already: Joe Nobody gets his 15 minutes of fame by asking Ms. Celebrity for a date.
Of course the klown didn’t back down. He’s way too cool and way too stupid. So he went up to the stage and handed Miss America a plastic flower (some people have no class at all) and asked her to come to the prom with him, and she tee-hee’d her way out of it… and the school administrators gave the klown a three-day suspension.
They could have ignored him; there was no harm done. They could have kept him out of the assembly in the first place, kept him busy cleaning erasers in the janitor’s room until Miss America had come and gone. But, no, they had to suspend him–and they played right into his hands. Now I’m writing about him and you’re reading about him. That’s what he wanted.
As I’ve observed before, fame ain’t so famous anymore. You don’t have to do much to earn it, and there’s no way you can keep it.
Maybe when I wake up tomorrow, this shameful age in history will be over.
You know what, she missed a terrific moment to become not just another Miss America, but a folk hero as well by accepting his invitation! What the heck! What is one evening out of her schedule. Sorry, but I see it differently, because I was the klass klown, not for the reasons you think, but because it was fun. It seems prankishness has now become criminalized in this terrorized underpants in a wad nation! – Jon
I think we can both agree that the prank did no one any harm, and that the school panjandrums should have overlooked it. But I don’t think they ever heard the saying, “Boys will be boys.”