High School Stories: Part the Third

     I have a lot of interesting and funny stories from high school. Some of these you will never hear. But some you will. This is one of the latter. Since Souderton’s new high school is opening up, I figured it would be appropriate to tell a story that intimately involves the old building. Souderton’s old high school is a mess of additions, making for a very confusing floor plan that no one can figure out until the last couple days of senior year. That is actually neither here nor there or anywhere in between. What I want to tell you about is our class’ (attempted) senior prank.

     Many in our graduating class never heard about this prank (it wasn’t exactly pulled off), but the idea was brilliant and I need for everyone to know about it. It was a concept spawned by me and two of my friends, Tyler and Steve. Again, last names will be omitted in case this blows job prospects for these two gentlemen. Anyway, we had the idea that we would put a banner up on the school on one of the last days of school. So that doesn’t sound that great, but we had the plan that we would put the banner on the main entrance of the school to drop down from the three story roof down to right above the first floor. In other words, it was to be HUGE. We went to SprawlMart and bought two sets of king sized sheets. Not exactly cheap but what the hey, you only live once. I then went to work with my mother’s sewing machine. I sewed the two cover sheets together to create the full size banner. (I guess that means that I have two fitted sheets and four pillow covers somewhere. I have no idea where they have gotten to.) So now we were ready to put the quote on.

I think we went with Ivory.

     We selected a quote from our yearbook from a fellow classmate Emerson. It was something to the effect to the effect of “You know you’re at Souderton when you hear the squeak of knowledge against the education of linoleum.” I don’t remember the exact quote, maybe Pete has it or I can update this when I visit home and look at my yearbook. Either that, or you’ll never know. Sufficient to say, it was an awesome quote and a perfect fit for the banner. Now, how are we gonna put that quote on the banner? Well in our high school, it turns out that seniors only have to go in for their actual finals for finals week. After that, we can go home. Since I lived a couple blocks from the high school and my parents were away for the day, my house was the perfect honeycomb hideout. I moved all the furniture in the living room out of the way every morning, and put flattened cardboard boxes on the floor so I didn’t stain the hardwood. We used paint to put the quote on the banner. Outdoor paint. That stuff smells. I had to make sure that I had sufficiently aired out the house before my parents came home every night. I would hide the banner in my room every evening and bust it out again every morning. This took about three days.

     Finally we finished. Now it came time to actually put the banner up. In previous years, we had discovered a way to get onto the roof of our high school by way of a low roof section on one corner. From here there are ladders leading to all of the other portions of the roof. Basically, once you’re up you’re good to go. Unfortunately, to get up on this particular part of the roof, you are on the side of the building that is thirty feet from the road. If a cop rolls by (they frequently do) and you’re trying to climb onto the building, chances are that you’re screwed. We set the plan for me to pick up the other two at about three in the morning. I had to sneak out of my house undetected and take my dad’s minivan which is about twenty feet from my parent’s bedroom. This wasn’t the first time I had stolen my dad’s car in the dead of night so I wasn’t that worried about it. I picked up Tyler and then went over to Steve’s. As I pull up, he runs out of the bushes dressed in all black. It was hilarious. Anyway, we decide that one of us will drive the car while the other two jump out and run to the school to put the banner up. Since Steve seemed a little skittish, we decided that he would drive the car while Tyler and I would do the deed.

     So we were all ready. We had the banner and various other materials necessary to the operation that I will mention later. Steve pulled up and Tyler and I jumped out. Steve took off to park somewhere close by and wait for us to finish. Tyler and I scaled the wall and climbed the five different ladders that took us up to the very top of the building. We then started construction. We had previously known that if we just put the banner up, it would be gone by the time we got to the school in the morning. We decided that it would be best to roll the banner up and secure it to the top of the school and then dangle a line from the top of the building all the way down to next to the ground floor entrance. That way, when we showed up, we could just pull the line and drop the banner down. Since we didn’t have to go to school the next day, we figured we would all go out for breakfast and then pull the string when we dropped Steve’s sister off for school. The plan was flawless. Tyler and I made sure we fitted weights to the bottom of the banner so that when we dropped it, it would stay down in the fashion we desired. We also secured the banner to the top of the school using strings and tying the banner to gallon jugs of water. It was a real pain in the ass bringing all those gallons of water up the ladders. Anyway, we set it all up and strung the string down to the entrance (which was on a different level and required more ladder work). All finished, we gave Steve a call and he came to pick us up. He was reluctant to actually stop the van so we jumped in through the sliding door.

     I drove both Steve and Tyler back home and then went home myself. My parents had somehow realized that both I and the van were gone and were awake and waiting for me when I made it home. I tried to make some excuse about going to Wawa, but they were not having it. They grounded me. When Steve and Tyler pulled up in the morning, I told them I was grounded and that one of them would have to pull the string (the original plan was for me to pull it). So I spent the day wondering what had happened. Later that night, I talked to them on AIM and discovered that neither of them had pulled the string. I was crushed. I knew that the janitors at our high school would have surely found the banner during the course of the day and that our prank was essentially boned. I snuck out again that night and walked down to the high school to check on the banner. Sure enough, it was gone. I was pretty pissed at Steve and Tyler, but after a week I cooled down. Even if it didn’t fly, it was still a pretty good prank. If we had pulled it off though, damn. Legendary.

Souderton's janitors were the inspiration for this level of craftiness.

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Listen: Relient K, “Sadie Hawkins Dance”
Quote: “Gee, I can’t wait till I get to ‘hike’ school.” – 3rd Grader

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