Who does drama best? Streep or the middle school girl?

Sorry Meryl. Middle school girls have you beat - hands down.

Since I made a bit of fun of middle school boys in my last post, I felt it only fair to pick on the girls a bit. Gender equity and all...

This particular excerpt is from the chapter entitled "Drama Queen":

ACT I

Curtain up

In this particular scenario, we’ll call this female student Jessica Itsallaboutme. She arrives at the dance in an outfit that would make her grandmother swoon. She is strutting her stuff because she believes she looks HOT – make up, hair gel and all. Jessica, the unofficial leader of the group of girls, has a crush on Andrew Hornyguy whose alien works overtime during events such as dances. Andrew sees Jessica out of the corner of his eye and starts jokingly hitting and slapping all the boys around him for no apparent reason. Jessica hangs out with a large clump of other moody, PMS-inflicted, females who are giggling and applying their tenth layer of lip gloss. The girls move as a pack whereas, the boys just run from friend to friend making sure they continue to punch and kick each other because, well, they just can’t help it.

Jessica finds out from Sarah Busybody that Andrew has texted Brittany Femfatale that he really wants to go out* with her which, by the way, may or may not be the truth. Telling the truth is a concept sometimes lost on a middle schooler, especially when telling a lie has the potential to start an avalanche of drama.

*For a moment, I need to review what “going out” means in middle school. Trust me – they don’t actually go anywhere. Going out with someone means you “like” them. Many times, while I was chatting with students and they would use that term, I’d purposely ask them, “So, where do you go?” They would just look at me with a perplexed expression, like I had three heads or something. Complete waste of good sarcasm.

Act II

Now the plot thickens. The pack that is friends with Jessica all move to the girls’ restroom while Jessica is crying her eyes out thus making her first attempt at wearing mascara become a total disaster, which makes her cry even harder. It’s a fact that at any given time during a dance 50% of the female population will be in the bathroom either crying, primping, gossiping or, of course, texting. All of Jessica’s friends have decided to hate all of Brittany’s friends and pretty much Andrew has now been pushed out of the whole affair. This has now turned into the War of the GirlWords. When everyone gets home, they all end up texting each other throughout the night which probably involves some profanity and maybe even a threat or two, such as “I’m going to kick her ass at school tomorrow”. Cell phone towers are lit up after middle school dances. This is a known fact.

Act III

Guess who has to sort through this whole mess the next day at school? Yep – the assistant principal. Parents will be calling about the texts and Jessica will continue to wallow in the drama and still remain in the bathroom 50% of the day. Brittany, who will also be crying all day, will be ostracized and, Andrew, god bless his little alien heart, won’t have a clue. After it has taken hours and hours to sort through this mess and all the dust settles, the following day Jessica and Brittany will be best friends and someone else is crying in the bathroom because they have now been pushed out of the pack. Just shoot me now.

Curtain down.

A day in the life of middle school... who needs the theater when you've got a front row seat to drama like this?