Life of Beth=:) (Chapter 9 - 9th Grade)

I forgot to mention in the last chapter that I spent my whole 8th grade year suffering from bad hair. It was the beginning of the 80's and I had the brilliant idea at the beginning of the school year to get my long baby fine hair layered and permed. NOT one of my better ideas - I spent the whole year first looking like a poodle and then growing the dumb thing out. Bad Hair is terrible addition to adolescent troubles.

So... 9th grade. Ninth grade was only marginally better than 8th grade. I was spared the indignity of being bottom of the totem pole as a freshman since they'd shipped all the 7th and 8th graders up to the high school that year. Unfortunately I was not spared the indignity of still being the butt of many practical jokes. Like putting my name on a sign up sheet for an upcoming dance with one of the most popular seniors in the school. Who I didn't even know. Who didn't know me. Fun times, that.

Two good things helped save the year from being a total disaster. First, at the beginning of the year I gathered up my courage and joined one of the most popular clubs in school for girls. They did all the cool stuff in the school - sponsored dances, Unicef trick-or-treating, parties, flower sales, etc. All the popular girls joined. Many of my friends were joining. The catch was, they had an initiation to get in. A very toned down, one day version, of a sorority hazing. Basically you had to spend one whole school day wearing whatever crazy get-up they told you to wear, doing whatever the current members told you to do, acting like their slave-for-a-day, and generally embarrassing yourself for the whole school's amusement. Harmless, but humiliating. It would basically be akin to torture for me - voluntarily putting myself in the situation I tried to avoid every single day of my life - being ridiculed and made a laughingstock. The only thing that convinced me to do it was the fact that if I did it freshman year, I'd be in good company. If you waited till sophomore year, they were purposefully harder on you, especially your own classmates who joined as freshmen. (A good friend of mine waited, and yes, they were harder on her - luckily she's always been a very good sport!)

I'd hazard a guess that they've probably had to tone it down in recent years, though I checked my old high school's website and the club still exists there. Lest you think I exaggerate, I happened across the page of my assignment book that I wrote the instructions for initiation day on:

1. Make your hair into at least 5 ponytails.
2. Put an old pair of pantyhose (with the legs on) on your head, over the ponytails, cut holes to pull ponytails through.
3. Tie a different colored ribbon on each ponytail.
4. Wear your underwear outside a pair of your dad's pants or jeans, roll the legs up to the knee.
5. Wear one of your mom's shoes and one of your dad's with no socks (I had to cheat and wear both my mom's cause my dad was afraid I'd sprain an ankle with this one.)
6. Wear your dad's button down shirt or pajama top with a tie.
7. Put at least 3 colors of nail polish on your fingernails
8. Bring an old pipe or pacifier to carry in your mouth (note: our mascot was the Mountaineer - at the time he clenched a pipe between his teeth)
9. Bring a bucket to carry your books in
10. Wear 2 different gaudy earrings
11. Can't wear makeup, but bring it (so they could put it on you in strange ways)
12. Must eat in the cafeteria that day (so you could be made to sing stupid songs to the entire lunchroom at the top of your lungs)

Well. I did it. I survived it, ego mostly intact. It was slightly more fun and slightly less embarrassing than I feared. I was also quite stealthy - I hid alot. The sisters said it wasn't fair, but the rule was they had to catch you to make you do things - and they could only catch you in the hall, classrooms were off limits.

I was glad I joined. All the activities (along with band, chorus, and a few other clubs) kept me pretty busy and my mind somewhat off my loneliness. Having the courage to suffer through the initiation raised my social standing somewhat, which helped.

The second good thing that happened that year was near the end of the year, my body finally took a hint from my hormones and caught up with my female classmates. Yay! Less embarrassment after gym class and bye-bye chubby phase!