She got spirit. Yes she do.

Spirit Week in high school makes sense. Over five days, a loathing for those punks at Blank High School and their non-popped collars is officially cultivated by the teachers and administration and nerds on the student government. Dude, we’re going to pwn those nameless jerks on the football field on Friday. They’re going to pay for being exactly like us except not living in our district. And if that doesn’t work, the parade float we unveil at halftime will certainly take them down a peg. Then we’re going to drink peppermint Schnapps out of travel size Scope bottle and dry hump our girlfriends after the homecoming dance. The rug burns will be our red, bumpy badges of hatred. That’s how we do it at Our High School!!! RRRAAAHH! HEAD BUTT!!!

But Spirit Week in middle school makes no sense. The kids at the rival school are people we already know from elementary school and will see again in high school. And soccer is the closest thing you’ll get to a homecoming game and it’s at 3 in the afternoon. The guys’ team probably stinks anyway and the players in the county are a little intimidating because they already have wispy mustaches and are Hispanic.

Or so it was at my middle school. To compensate for our pathetic sports teams the school planned a week’s worth spirit-lifting activities. They were generally things that would get you in trouble during the rest of the year but harmless enough to not allow distraction. For example –

SALAD DRESSING WEEK!!!?!

Monday - Thousand Island (Caribbean/Hawaiian)
Tuesday- Ranch (Cowboy)
Wednesday - Blue Cheese (Blue)
Thursday - French (Berets and/or fashionable clothes)
Friday - House Dressing (School Colors which included blue again)

Ha! Salad dressing. So fun and creamy!

This wasn’t actually what my middle school did, but I can’t recall all of them. The only day I can remember was Opposite Day. And I remember Opposite Day because Opposite Day became a MAJOR INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT.

The design was simple - boys dress up like girls and girls like boys. Get it? The opposite of how we would normally dress. Genius. Class starts, girls roll up wearing football jerseys and baseball caps. Boys come in pink shirts and head bands. We had so much spirit.

But someone had an uptight parent. And that parent employed their God-given American right to ruin it for everyone by calling a local radio show and declare that their child’s school was encouraging cross-dressing. It quickly got absurd with a bullet. By the end of the show, our fair academy was a den of perverts and transsexuals. News crews and reporters showed up during recess to get pictures of the 7th Grade Degenerates.*

Teachers suddenly ushered us inside. All gender-specific clothing had to be removed even if that meant sitting in our stinking gym uniforms for the rest of our classes. At the end of the day, parents hustled kids to their cars, with their jackets pulled over their heads like a common jailhouse perp-walk. It was a disaster. The rest of Spirit Week was canceled. I’m unsure if they ever hosted it again.

But that was at my middle school. It seems Spirit Week is still alive in well at some schools.



At least I hope so. It’d be a shame if she dresses like this every day. Or awesome.



*I bet you think that I’m going to say that this is a good band name. Wrong. It’s a crappy band name. I left an asterisk because a few years later, the Post ran article about kids at my old middle school were exchanging favors for blowjobs.