What's cool in middle school?

Apparently, murdering your pets.

            So today, we had a free study in RELA (Reading, Eating, and Language Arts). This, of course, actually meant that we had a day to talk to everyone and wish we were not in RELA. So D.O., ever exciting, chose to start a classwide conversation on pet deaths.

            "Yeah, so, when I was nine, I accidentally dropped my pet fish down the disposal and turned it on!" D.O. squealed.

            Yeah, okay. If that isn't extremely frightening, I don't know what is.  First of all, who would allow D.O. to touch an animal, much less own one? Second, how do you accidentally drop a fish down the disposal, and accidentally turn it on? What is wrong with this girl?

            "And then, I got a hamster to make me feel better about my tragic loss!" Oh, dang. This is going to end badly. "But I accidentally decapitated him while putting him in my Fisher-Price cash register!"

            What? What is this nonsense? D.O. ACCIDENTALLY decapitated a hamster? How do you do that? So pretty soon, the class was on a collective rampage over these poor animals. Honestly, I don't blame them. Um, ew! That is truly disgusting.

            "So now I have a kitten. I almost accidentally drowned her in a bathtub, but then my mom saved her!"

            Okaaaay. A few things wrong with this, namely, her mother had to stop her from drowning a kitten in a bathtub. She couldn't not kill a pet just once, no, her mother had to intervene.

            "That's disgusting! How could you do that to a poor hamster?"

            "I had a fish once! It died from head trauma!"

            "How did you explain this to your parents?"

            "Ewwwwww!"

            Yep. That's what's NOT cool in middle school.

By Jessica, the viola player.