i really can't see myself actually writing a high school au but a vision of adam, sam, and ben doing my dumb niche extracurricular activity at an unnamed all boys' religious school struck me so powerfully i simply had to write it down. so here is 350 words of baloney:
“Ultimately we are participating in an extracurricular activity that has virtually no name recognition and even less sex appeal,” Adam said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously.”
Frankly he found it to be a total dereliction of duty that this stupid high school didn’t at least offer model UN, but no one in the administration was responding to his letters. Fascists.
“I am taking this seriously,” said Sam. As usual his uniform was a mess, his sleeves rolled up, his tie askew. His pants were always too short which revealed constant flashes of his distinctly non-uniform athletic socks. At least Ben was actually wearing his uniform properly, although somehow his perpetual slump and lackadaisical affect made him look just as rumpled as Sam.
Adam looked professional and smart. Obviously.
Preparations for the High School Ethics Bowl Regional Competition were NOT going well. First of all Adam considered all of the cases to be fundamentally stupid, in part because this year the competition was sponsored by the AARP and so they leaned heavily in favor of the elderly. Second of all no one but him was approaching this with the appropriate combination of pride, moral rigor, and fear.
Ben was hardly bothering to participate, mostly playing Wordle on his phone. Meanwhile Sam seemed absolutely addicted to presenting the world’s stupidest points about eldercare being covered under FMLA, no matter how much Adam called him out on it. Listening to him audibly fish around for a compelling argument and come up with nothing was giving Adam a turbo-migraine.
“You’re literally not making any sense,” Adam said. “I need you to either get on board with the pro-FMLA angle or come up with an actual viable alternative we can present to the judges, or else I’m taking you off this case and putting you on bioethics.” No one ever wanted to do bioethics.
“I think we should euthanize the elderly,” Ben piped up. His phone made a sound that indicated he had just completed the New York Times Mini. Adam put his face down on the desk, and screamed.