Ruby Falls High School was as American of a high school as you could get.  A school in the Atlanta, Georgia area with nearly 2000 students, it was the classic example of teenage life in the United States.  Football players and other athletes were frequently found in rehabilitation from addictions to steroids, crank, creatine, and what not.  It was not uncommon for a cheerleader to miss half of the basketball or football season for a pregnancy. 

My name is Stuart Foster and I am a senior at this particular secondary institution of learning.  My three main friends, or "allies" or "partners in crime" as we sometimes call them here, Michael Kirkpatrick, Jimmy Hopkins, and Dean Smith didn't get into the shenanigans of the other teens.  I, Kirkpatrick, and Hopkins were all ranked in the top 20 of the class of 2002 at this school, which would have easily put us among the top students in the state, given the abundance of less than intelligent rural types that inhabit this part of the country.   My third friend, Dean Smith, was a junior but was also a pretty gifted individual.  He had been given a scholarship to some fancy super-expensive art school up in New York and was also offered a job for right after high school with the St. Louis jazz ensemble.  They actually came down from St. Louis to Atlanta to hear him audition.  The starting salary for the job when he reached 18 would be somewhere between 110k and 120k a year – not many high school teens can say they had had such a job offer.

Him, I, Michael, and Jimmy all played in the Ruby Falls Marching Band.  Around here just about everyone was in some sort of extracurricular activity.  It was traditional for everyone to wear a shirt advertising their club or organization.  Your after school activities completely shaped your social status around these parts, and being in the marching band, well, we were less than respected.

Oh sure, high school and college football games just aren't the same without the sound, you say, but around here, we were considered to be a nuisance.  In the south football is religion, and naturally having a winning season for a high school football coach was like attaining salvation.  In the past some coaches would come up with the craziest excuses for not winning the game.  Some would say the lights were not bright enough – some would complain of the distraction of cheerleaders wearing revealing uniforms.  Anyways, somewhere along the line the marching bands got sacked and before we realized it we were not allowed to play while the other team had possession of the ball.

And we have still had penalties – none that made any significant difference on the outcome of the game, (I would know as my knowledge of football is rather extensive, being in the marching band.) but each referee was different and some seemed to throw a flag whenever you played a song they didn't like. 

And when we did have penalties caused, the entire home (or in case sometimes visitor, which was quite often filled; rain or shine.) side would give us all a nasty look.  (And our band director, who could be quite the jerk sometimes, acted like nothing had happened, perfectly satisfied that we were getting all the hate rather than him, but that's another story.)  As students and drunks walked by they would throw ice at us.

I rather liked football, and although I resented the irritated look the entire huddle gave us when a noise penalty flag was thrown, I wanted for the team's success.  What really rather annoyed me was some of the reactions of the cheerleaders.  As much as I have admit I have fantasized about humping one of those sugar cakes,  (I apologize if you find this in bad taste, but I must tell to you like it is exactly like it is.) they are some of my least favorite people in the whole world.  Pardon the language, but most of them were nothing but high strung, stuck up, anorexic, prissy, arrogant sluts after the attention of those preppy pretty boys that are just out to mate.

The cheerleaders, which were for the most part popular amongst the classmates but not too bright in the head, acted as if we did not exist.  To them, the entire school population was a Hindu community and we were the untouchables- the ones destined to be reincarnated to slime molds.

If you can bear with me for just a little bit longer, I will get on with the tale soon.  I have to discuss with you the most important aspect of life at Ruby Falls High School: the social cliques.  Sure.  I know you've probably had them at your high school, but I bet you didn't have them well defined as we did here.  At Ruby Falls High School, your clique, in which was determined by your money, your intelligence, and personality type, played a huge factor in school life.  It affected where you sat at lunch and where you were allowed to park your car. (Unofficially, of course)  It determined your friends, it determined your enemies, it determined what clothes you wore, what cosmetics and brands of toiletry items to use, it affected what time you showed up at the prom and other social events, it determined your chances of being elected to school office or other position.  It determined where the work study seniors gave you your locker assignment, it determined who you could date and associate with on a first name basis.  This may not sound particularly extraordinary, but in truth teens in most high schools tend to exaggerate about the separation of the cliques.  It gives them a sense of belonging to a society rather than being chicks in a nest; a feeling of independence from parental dependence.  This view of cliques depicted by the American teen would not be an exaggeration at my high school, however.

All of the students, with the exception of the ghetto students who did not need any further distinction from their trashy clothes, (pardon my snobbish social class slur, but again I feel I must tell it like it is) and the hippies, freaks, and other non-conformists who considered themselves to be a complete different species from the rest of us, everyone was religious about staying true to their clique.  Whenever a new student moved into town, if they didn't transfer to a local private school from being completely scared away, they were expected to complete long hard initiations that would last as long as a month.  The want and need to fit in of your average teen was so overwhelming, however, that they usually bared with it.

Me, my friends, and the other people that you would consider to be in my clique, namely the ones labeled "dorks", nerds, loners, and other outcasts, were not considered a clique by the others in the school but were rather considered sewer rats. (although for the most part they gave us a better treatment than the cheerleaders did)  If we parked in the wrong place, our car got egged or keyed.  Our locker assignments were always the run down lockers on the science wing.  If we tried out for a sport, regardless of whether we were the star player or the worst player on the team, we had people play cruel jokes on us until we quit.  We were the ghetto lower class peasants in the society that was the teenage population at Ruby Falls High.

Another thing that I should point out before proceeding is some peculiarities within our group.  One thing that separated the "geeks" if you will from the other human sub species (not an overstatement of the cliques in this case if I do say myself) was that we had no official female members.  Of course, there was no official membership for our clique; we accepted anyone and everyone that would join us. (which in itself is another distinction of our people, which I will explain in just a moment)  I knew that female "dorks" existed.  I have seen them.  They try to hide behind fancy cosmetics and clothes they believe are favorable to the in crowds.  Ironically, the wearing of their clothes even further separated them from the crowd they are trying to fit in with  They tag along with other groups of girls, hoping to move up into the ranks, and never do.  I've seen it happening many times before.  You really feel embarrassed for them trying to be the perky gossipy girl that is the women of the in crowd.  They stick out like sore thumbs.  The sad thing is that they actually think they belong to the group who thankfully has more manners than to send the unwelcome guest on their way.   Some of them do occasionally come by our lunch table and talk to us, feeling it is their duty to be a friend to some of the "less cool" kids.  It sickens me when they do this to me, and sometimes I just want to slap these girls, but of course as we really are in the same social clique we got along rather well.

I considered us to be the second most intelligent of the roughly twelve identified social cliques.  Above us were the intellectuals, who were near the threshold of being or not being cool.  These people got top SAT scores, the best grades, and were usually favored by most of the in crowd.  Even they themselves sometimes are unsatisfied with their social status, particularly the girls, and they usually try the sophisticated look to try and get in with the popular crowd.  Some were somewhat nerdy and talked kind of nerdy, but for the most part these you can't pick apart an intellectual from a student of average intelligence by basic appearance.

Besides being of the most intelligent teens on the planet Ruby Falls, I also considered us of the kindest of young men.  It was not unusual for people to walk all over us.  I can recall one time in my chemistry class of my junior year the teacher had us all write our names at the top of an eight and a half by eleven inch piece of paper and pass them around the room.  When the person received the paper, they were to write down something nice about the person whose name appeared at the top of the paper.  I noticed that every male student in my class had at least one "cute" written in what was unmistakably a girl's handwriting – except me, of course.  While I did leave class with my head down, it was of no surprise.  There was a long string of "nice", "sweet", "kind" etc. on my paper, but somehow that did not make me feel better about myself, for when I found myself unable to write something nice about a classmate, I wrote "nice".

I was used to having moral reducers like these, and I could usually be cheered up by reducing the curve of a math test to under five points.  I thank the good lord for my intelligence – without it I don't think there would be anything for my classmates to respect me for.  Heck, I don't think they'd even talk to me if they didn't have me to ask math questions to.  I have often pondered what separates the out crowd individuals from the in-crowd individuals.  Although I do have a very healthy sense of humor, I leave the impression to all of the members of the in crowd as a very serious person. 

Let's face it: When some people try to act cool, they embarrass themselves.  A wise man once said that it is better to appear foolish than it is to open your mouth and remove all doubt.  Replace the word "foolish" with "dorky", and that's pretty much been my philosophy of life at Ruby Falls.  Why were we so different?  Were we more simple-minded or was it just a different personality type?  I act differently around different people.  I admit it.  I consider it bad manners to not conduct myself in a way I think I should around a given person or group.  It's because of this that people have impressions of me that vary greatly.  I know that this sounds very unhealthy of me, but I have found that doing this helps me raise my already down-in-the-dumps confidence level.  It angers me to hear someone say something along the lines of "Why can't people just accept themselves for who they are?"  I've found, to no surprise, that these are people who are typically smart, athletic, and get any date that they want.  I wouldn't mind dying next week to be able to see that person switch places with me for one week.

Well, I suppose I should get on with the tale before I get too far off on this self confidence tangent.  I've found that talking of the things that dissatisfy my about myself only worsens my mood, which may skew the viewpoint of this story that I am going to present to you.