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Summer Yearbook Signings  It’s that time of year again, ladies and gentlemen. When the short skirts come out from hibernation, the sun shines through the evening hours, and everyone is too busy studying to notice either. Yes, my friends, that’s the sweet smell of summer right around the corner. While some may be enjoying the extremes of all-night study sessions, others may be engaged in all night Beirut tournaments, but how many of you remember what you were doing this exact same time about 9 years ago? Because I know what I was doing: signing yearbooks. The signing of yearbooks, a rite of passage for every middle school student, was a time honored tradition, a time when all kids rushed around the school with their newly purchased yearbook trying to get everyone to leave awe-inspiring messages such as, “Have a great summer! Keep in touch!” There was, of course, the lazier abbreviation, “Have a great summer! K.I.T!” Looking back at my old yearbooks from seventh grade, I almost had to strain my brain to remember what the hell K.I.T meant in the first place. The first thing that crossed my mind was, “KIT? Wasn’t that the talking car from Knight Rider that German musical sensation David Hasselhoff rode in? Ah, wait a minute, that was KITT.” But then there were the smart ass kids, you know, the ones who would write things like, “Don’t ever change!” or precocious gems like, “Hope you stay cool!” Well, that’s thinking optimistic isn’t it? Even for a twelve year old, that’s showing a lot of foresight to think, “Hey! I hope you stay cool over the summer, because if you come back to school and you have somehow lost your coolness, I will pretend like I don’t know you. You will be only be notable in your absence like the period in Dr Pepper.” Kids can be so mean. Then somewhere along the line, there’s a paradigm shift between junior high and your senior year in high school. There’s that last month before graduation where everyone scrambles to write loving, witty, sometimes overly romantic sentiments for classmates to remember when looking back fondly at their time at Generic High. It’s a time when people you hardly talked to try to write anecdotes about “that one time” that you did “that one thing.” I say, screw that! You’ll probably never talk to half of those people who wrote in your yearbook anyways, it’s the perfect time to get back at a jilted lover or the one guy who wouldn’t shut up during your English II class. “Hey it was great to hang out with you this year, even though you WOULDN’T STOP TALKING. Have a great summer!” It’d be great if your parents read through your yearbook and found this entry, “Hey, I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us baby, we had a good run while it lasted even though you slept with half our school while we were together, but surprise! HPV! Now your STDs have STDs! If you didn’t have it before, you do now, Happy Early Birthday, sweetie!” But summer isn’t really like that anymore. Instead of Flintstone’s Pushpops, Slip n’ Slides, and summer camp, many of our summers consist of working a nine-to-five job, looking for internships, and for the less fortunate, another summer filled with more classes. Thank you everybody for reading my column this year, it’s been great. I hope you enjoyed reading my seemingly random rants and raves about the happenings around campus and in the media, and maybe, just maybe, the next year will bring me many new and amusing things to fear and loathe. Who knows, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ child could turn out to be the antichrist, or maybe the school will get around to fixing those awkward stairs that lead you over the levee. In any case, I leave you with this parting quote from the man himself, Hunter S. Thompson. “Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere . You have to know the material you’re writing about before you alter it.” See you crazy kids next year. KIT!
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