murder me with a shovel

HIGH SCHOOL This is how to run a stick of Chapstick down the black boxes on your scantron so the grading machine skips the wrong answers. This is how to honor roll. Hell, this is how to National Honor Society. This is being voted “Most Likely to Marry for Money” or “Talks the Most, Says the Least” for senior superlatives. This is stepping around the kids having panic attacks in the hallway. This is being the kid having a panic attack in the hallway. This is making the A with purple moons stamped under both eyes. We had to try. This is telling the ACT supervisor you have ADHD to get extra time. Today, the average high school student has the same anxiety levels as the average 1950’s psychiatric patient. We know the Pythagorean theorem by heart, but short-circuit when asked “How are you?” We don’t know. We don’t know. That wasn’t on the study guide. We usually know the answer, but rarely know ourselves.