From The Classroom: Intro To Summer

What’s up, Annapolis?

Summer is fast approaching, and the only people happier than the sunscreen companies are my people, the teens, who have been cooped up in school all this time, and will now be cooped up even longer than expected due to overcautious school administrators snow. I can’t think of anyone who isn’t excited for the coming months–kids, parents, sno-cone vendors, skin cancer doctors–all of us are waiting with bated breath for the swimming, the barbecuing, the fireworks, and using 100-degree heat as an excuse to do nothing but fan yourself.

Of course, summer means different things for all of those involved. My generation has a different take on summer than your generation. The first issue that’s racing through every teenager’s mind right now is the one big hurdle we all need to pass over to reach our long-awaited vacation. Not cleaning out the intimidating black holes that are our lockers, where textbooks and old lunches go to die, disappear, and reappear when you need to clean them out (I know I don’t go to Hogwarts, but I have a strong suspicion that my locker is a Vanishing cabinet). I’m talking about final exams.

A substantial amount of students, having been successfully distracted by the heat and the allure of the beach, would rather not take the final exams. However, a substantial amount of teachers, having been made insane by the heat and poor air conditioning in the classrooms, have decided to make the exams worth a substantial portion of our grade. This presents a conflict of interest (as well as a very good argument for better air conditioning for our schools).

Now, students who don’t want their grades to inexplicably drop are cooped up frantically studying verb tenses that they will never use, frantically calculating angles for houses they will never build, and frantically perusing the Sparknotes (today’s answer to Cliff’s Notes) for books they never read. This may contribute to a number of changes around the city, including:

• Lazier graffiti, specifically, time-pressed artists leaving the c out of the f-word and forgetting to detail their cartoon phalli
• A large dip in the city’s economy as passing Trig suddenly becomes a higher priority than shopping at Hollister
• A 35% hike in the city’s procrastination rates (study conducted by the Seth Perry Foundation noticing how often his friends are on facebook)

But after final exams, then what? We’re set free upon the world, to go to concerts and parties and camps, perpetuating all sorts of youthful mischief. If Domino’s delivers 500 pizzas to your house, you know to blame the school district for not instituting year-round schooling. But sometimes, to keep us out of trouble and teach us responsibility, we’re sent out to find to find jobs.

Many of my friends, who have realized that Xbox live memberships don’t go on trees, are applying for jobs at popular ice cream places like Bruster’s and Rita’s. I’ve tried to stay away from the job market–I enjoy having girlfriends too much to want an Xbox, and I don’t really want a boss unless they are a female with the last name “Daisy”.

Boss: “Seth, can you haul the trash out to the dumpster?”

Me: “Yes’m, Miss Daisy.” (Gleeful giggles)

Still, I’ve latched onto the latest trend of drifting away from the pool and might be able to spend some time shadowing a professional on the job and learning how to be an honest man. Well, honest may be a stretch–I would be shadowing at the US Capitol. If I do, I’ll be spending a week or two working in the Ways & Means committee press office, so I may need to learn a thing or two about the art of spin. I’m going to try and put a positive spin on some Eye On Annapolis headlines in order to prepare for my few summery weeks of being weaned onto responsibility:

“Pasadena Double  Stabbing”=”Anne Arundel Medical Center Receives New Clients”

“ABC and ACP Have it Wrong”=”Local Acronyms Correctionally Challenged, Truth Bestowed Upon Grateful Citizens”

“Cohen Adds Position to Cabinet”=”Cohen Creates Jobs For Annapolis”

“Ehrlich to Challenge O’Malley”=”O’Malley Annoyed by Non-threatening Fly”

“Bomb Dogs Search City Hall”=”Even Sociopaths Take An Interest In Our Government”

“Annapolis Chief Concerned for Mayor’s Safety”=”Police Buy Mayor Sunglassed Playmates”

“Annapolis Facing Furloughs & Layoffs”=”City Employees to Spend More Time with Families”

Seriously, though, even they may rob us of our poolside tanning and boating and what have you, our generation’s summer jobs, whether they be at ice cream places or the nation’s Capitol, have valuable lessons to teach us–for instance, the extra income will help us learn the general skill of not magically vanishing all of our money, which would make us eligible for city government positions. Even our current mayor, Josh Cohen, worked on a Michigan berry farm in his high-school days, according to an article at www.hometownannapolis.com. Our Spongebob-raised generation may be more inclined to cavort around with a starfish than submit ourselves to such rigorous physical labor, but hey, if Spongebob willingly cooked fries at the Krusty Krab, we’ll sacrifice a couple of hours of our day to monotony, too.

The job, of course, is only a few hours of our day. What occupies the rest? I could rail on and on about the merits of the different brands of popsicles, the perils of not doing one’s summer reading, the fun of camping, and pools versus beaches, but right now I want to concentrate on a subset of beaches. Specifically, the “beach” subcategories “Long walks on the” and “kissing on the”.

Yes, summer love. It happened to the kids in Grease. It happened to the kids in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It happened to the kids in Friday the 13th before their hearts were broken (literally) by a kid in a hockey mask. The summer, with its late sunsets and isolated camps and abundance of people with their shirts off, is perfect for a little bit of summer romance.

So, readers, when your kid decides to sneak away from your beach house, don’t worry–he’ll only be having an illegal bonfire and hooking up with some girls from another state, in an innocent youthful way, of course.

Or, if he’s anything like me, he’ll be too paralyzed with fear to sneak away from your beach house. Even if he did, he’d light himself on fire before the bonfire could flame up. But if he managed to do that, he’d be able to hook up with some girls from another state, as long as he’d read:

Seth Perry’s ‘Personally Experienced Summer Top 10 Relationship Tips for Slightly Awkward Young Men”

Yes, these things really did happen to me. Don’t judge.

10. When a girl gives you her email address, make very very very sure that it is her personal email address. If declaring your love to your girlfriend over her email sounds unromantic, declaring your love to her parents over her family email is even less so.

9. You know you’re too young to be dating if your girlfriend breaks up with you because of a game of capture the flag.

8. Don’t quote Shakespeare after you kiss a girl. “O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again!” was a lot sexier in the 17th century.

7. When a girl bumps your hand a lot, she wants you to hold it, do not repeatedly mistake it for a muscle spasm.

6. Learn what “the bane of my existence” means before you use it in a love poem. It does not mean “the reason that I live”, and it looks really out of place right after a paragraph describing how wonderful she is to behold.

5. Know when your girlfriend wants to break up with you. Signs of this include: Texting throughout a dance, ignoring your emails and phone calls for two months, sending her friends to ask you to stop stalking her.

4. Good first date idea: a movie. Bad first date idea: card games.

3. It is always a good idea to know what your girlfriend’s parents do before making lawyer jokes. Especially if your girlfriend’s parents happen to be lawyers.

2. Gifts are appropriate, but some gifts are not as good as others. Hugs>chocolate>pens. Don’t get her a pen, whatever you do.

1. MAKE SURE YOUR GIRLFRIEND LIKES BOYS. This is sort of important if you want your relationship to work.

Summer 2010. Get ready.

Tags: From The Classroom, seth perry

Category: COLUMNS, From The Classroom