By Georgia Grellier | Illustration by Jubilee Hernandez
Welcome back to Story Time with Georgia, where I relay various stories from members of the CC community, and also sometimes just me.
Who: Senior girl
When: First high school party ever
What: “Maybe I was gonna die here, but at least I’d been to a party.”
Nothing in high school is like the movies, because everyone who plays high schoolers in movies is at least 35 years old. For this week’s senior, who went to boarding school where there are no regular high school parties, Project X-like experiences were nothing more than distant fantasies. But during a school break, she finally got the chance to go to her first party ever, and it didn’t disappoint.
“It was fun and it really felt like how the movies depicted high school,” she said. “The music was loud, people were buying drugs in the bathroom, and there was beer pong in the yard.”
The most exciting part of real-life high school parties, though, is when the police inevitably show up to shut it down. Despite never actually having been to a party, from what this senior had seen in movies, she knew immediately that the music turning off and flashing lights weren’t good signs. Watching five police cars pull up with lights and sirens didn’t make her feel much better.
As a sea of adolescents sprinted in every direction, the senior was nervous — “I knew I needed to act fast,” she said. Spotting a tall wood fence a few feet in front of her, she was ready to yeet herself over it. “I guess adrenaline kicked in,” she said of the fact that she actually made it over. Unfortunately, the cops turned out to be on the other side of the fence as well, so it was time for a new strategy. They were scanning the area with flashlights and the senior was almost starting to freak out, which makes sense because no one has fun getting an MIP, something she said “would f*** up my whole life.”
Again looking around for inspiration, she was thrilled to see a climbable tree. She quickly wedged herself into the tree to be as hidden as possible, strategically putting her arms over her head so that it would be covered by a branch. When cops pointed the flashlight right at her hiding spot, they seemed to see nothing and just moved on. It was incredibly effective in terms of running from the law, and the senior was definitely relieved not to have gotten arrested at a high school party.
The remaining issue, she said, was that “I seriously crammed myself between two branches.” When her sister gave her a call to let her know that the cops had left, she began her attempt to climb down. “Turns out, I had wedged myself in the tree to the point of being stuck.”
Starting to get more nervous, she hung up the phone and again tried to remove herself from the tree. Nothing was working. “Maybe I was gonna die here, but hey at least I had been to a party,” she remembers thinking.
She finally got another call from her sister, who was looking for her, and told her she was stuck. Since there were a bunch of cops around, her sister just asked them to help her sister. They thought she was joking until “they came to the tree and were like holy shit this girl is actually stuck in a tree.” One cop was very sassy, though, and said “it wasn’t his job to get me out.” Her friends eventually helped her down, and despite the drama, there’s no way any high school party she went to after this one ever lived up to it.
Takeaway: Secretly, I’m jealous, and you know you are too, even if it’s on the inside.