The Year Was 1993...
A tale of a cheap prank, laissez faire authority, and the phrase "at least we'll get a story out of it."
I don't know what compelled us to do it. Maybe we wanted to pretend to be older. Or maybe curiosity got the better of us and we just wanted to see what would happen. Either way, we thought it would be hilarious. At 13 years old, nearly everything was hilarious. We look at each other and nod. Then, as naturally as we can, we approach the convenience store cashier, reach over the glass, and place our two bottles of beer on the counter.
We were certain a teacher would see us sneaking away from the building before school started and yell at us to come back. But they didn't. So we kept walking up the hill toward the Cash & Carry convenience store, which sounds more like a euphemism for armed robbery than a place to buy donuts and fill up with gas. Once we decided to buy non-alcoholic beer instead of Mountain Dew to wash down our PB&J lunches, we were certain the checkout clerk would yell at us for being idiots and make us put it back. But he didn't. So we pay for our faux beer - one O'Doul's and one Miller Sharp's to be exact - and we make the short walk back to the school, stashing the bounty in our backpacks along the way. But do we actually have the guts to crack a beer during lunch?
The tricky part, so we thought, was acquiring the beverages. But even making it to lunch is under serious threat. Concentrating during our morning classes is out of the question. All I keep doing is picturing the looks on our classmates' faces when we simulate Miller Time™ over a peanut butter & jelly with the crusts cut off. Meanwhile, it occurs to me that I don't even know what this stuff tastes like. To pull this off it has to look as matter-of-fact as possible like it's any other Tuesday. What if it's so harsh I can't keep it down? I start to get nervous. Not because I realize this is a bad idea, which - to any objective observer - it clearly is, but because I'm worried about the joke not landing. Priorities, you know?
For the next hour, my imagination bounces back and forth between nightmares of getting expelled and phantasies of being the authors of the greatest middle school lunch prank ever pulled. I periodically sneak a glance at my partner-in-crime, wondering if he's experiencing the same emotional roller coaster. He seems too calm. He looks like he's actually paying attention to the teacher. Wait, he's not going to back out, is he? I don't mind sharing the glory because if it all goes sideways we can share the blame, but if he screws me and chickens out...
"Let's see...how about you, Tim? You've been pretty quiet."
My eyes suddenly focus on the chalkboard as everyone else's eyes focus on me. In a classic stall tactic, I look down at my textbook which probably isn't even opened to the correct page. I'm so busted, and because I didn't hear a word the teacher said, I can't even take one of my patented wildly-wrong-yet-humorous guesses. I take the classroom equivalent of the "walk of shame", and concede the truth.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
Even though I wasn't a big fan of school, I hated disappointing my teacher. She was strict, yet kind, and she had the sort of sense of humor that didn't belong in a catholic school. She narrows her eyes at me playfully, obviously knowing I was miles away before she called on me, then mercifully moves on. The interlude is enough to snap me out of my spiraling paranoia. After a few minutes, the nerves of anticipation return. Whatever class this is will be over soon and then it's down to the cafeteria for our big reveal.
For a stunt like this to be successful, the key ingredient is subtlety. We want everything else about lunch to seem natural so when we twist off the tops of our beverages with deadpan faces, the awareness & curiosity builds slowly around us. The unofficial goal we set is twofold: primarily, we want to make our friends' eyes pop out of their heads before laughing so hard that their chocolate milk sprays elegantly from each nostril. But the bonus objective is to see how long we can go before authority intervenes. Could we make it through the whole lunch period and get away with our hilarious prank? Authority's name is Miss Arnold, our larger-than-life lunch aide. And unbeknownst to us as we both take our first sip, she stirs from across the cafeteria.
Now, "across the cafeteria" makes it sound like we have another minute or two before the failure of our bonus goal comes to pass, but this is a small school. There are 18 kids in the entire 8th grade, so the lunch room is only slightly bigger than a few classrooms put together. Not to mention Miss Arnold moves with a distinct lack of urgency. She doesn't walk, she moseys. If she was chased by a bear, I think she'd prefer squaring off and administering a full nelson to escaping if it meant she had to beat feet. Despite this, however, before the burning disgustingness that is our second sip reaches our stomachs, we feel the gravity of her presence.
It's apropos that we set our secondary goal before ever having tasted beer (or in this case, its non-alcoholic analog), because had I known what it tasted like beforehand, our bonus goal would be to see how fast we could get it taken away. Why someone would volunteer to drink this over, say, literally anything else, is beyond my comprehension. However, regardless of that discovery, looming beside me now with a gently outstretched hand is Miss Arnold. Though I'm confident she could take on a grizzly, she's actually one of the kindest souls at this school. Without speaking a word, she confiscates our contraband with the same knowing glance I got from my teacher earlier and even reveals a tiny smirk as she drifts back to her post.
Bathing in the post-prank afterglow, my friend and I don't care that zero people chucked milk from their noses or laughed out loud. And we also don't care the entire area is overflowing with awkward glances and confused expressions. And we don't care we have nothing to drink with our lunches now. All we care about is the knowledge that we set out to do something and we did it without wavering. Sure, there's a solid chance our mothers will be called and we'll be grounded. And maybe we'll have to go to counseling because she convinced herself this wasn't just a joke and we have a serious problem. And through counseling, it's revealed that we have repressed feelings of loneliness, hence our willingness to risk so much for even a small amount of attention.
At least we'll get a story out of it.