You’ve BeenTricked by an 11th (I mean 12th) Grader

As you read this, there is a little "12" beside my name in the school district's student enrollment spreadsheet.

Impossible, right?

I mean, if school years could get cited for speeding, the 11th grade would be in an impound lot by now.

Hard as it is to believe that next year will be my last year of high school, I find it still harder to wrap my head around the fact that it will be my brother's first. And he's trying out for the football team to boot.

I'm not sure whether to feel scared for him or sorry for those poor Dayton players.

The school year being over, there's a gazillion thoughts racing through my head, the first one of which starts with an "h" and rhymes with "cow". Quite frankly, it seems impossible.

So I consulted the only expert on the impossible I knew: an old e-mail that has provided a welcome bit of clarity in this unbelievable week.

IMPOSSIBLE THINGS IN THIS WORLD: 1. You can't count your hair. 2. You can't wash your eyes with soap. 3. You can't breathe when your tongue is out.

Dude, put your tongue back in!

Okay, so it's neither relevant nor terribly helpful. But it's distracting. And when you're skidding at a hundred miles an hour to the edge of a stark cliff overlooking the rocky, piranha-infested river called "Adulthood", it helps to take your mind off the present situation for a moment.

But that can be difficult when the present situation is drastic. I'm gonna miss Waitsburg when I go to college next year. I'm going to miss writing this column. Even though I haven't met most of you readers, I feel like I know you.

I know, for example, that: 1. You are reading this. 2. You live in Waitsburg, or have lived in Waitsburg, or know someone who lives in Waitsburg, or live within an hour's drive of Waitsburg, or you're getting someone else's subscription by mistake. 3. You are incapable of saying the word "Pea" without separating your lips. 4. You just tried. 6. You are smiling. 7. You are laughing at yourself and you skipped number 5. 8. You just checked to see if there was a number 5. 9. You are either laughing uncontrollably or didn't fall for number 3 and really wish that I would have an actual experience so that I could write about something that was actually interesting. (Hi, Chris.) 10. You are 257% more likely to know my SAT score (which I didn't tell you) than my birthday (which I did). 11. You just ran out of reading material.