The Petition (Part 8)

My best friend throughout my high school years was Rebecca Landwehr. Rebecca and I were Will and Grace long before Will and Grace ever existed, the primary difference being that unlike Will, I was Jewish, and unlike Grace, Rebecca was not. We were incredibly loud and rambunctious and dramatic, and each thought the other was just about the most hilarious person on earth.

A couple quick stories about Rebecca and me:

There was a shy, very pretty girl in our school named Eleanor Guild (rhymes with "mild"). Every single time Rebecca and I saw her, we would start singing at the top of our lungs, "Born to be Eleanor Guiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild!"

We had songs for other people as well. For Kim Ward, we sang a little ditty to the tune of "Mahna Mahna" from "The Muppet Show." It went as follows:

I am Kim Ward
(Do doo do doo doo)
I am Kim Ward
(Do doo do doo)
I am Kim Ward
(Do doo do doo doo, do doo doo, do doo do doo do doo doo doo doo doo!)



Ever notice how highly disturbing-looking Mahna Mahna's backup singers are?

For Heather Golm, we sang a rendition of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now," retitled "I Think We're Heather Golm Now."

You get the point.

Rebecca and I appeared in every Summit high school musical, usually in lead roles. We both sang in the school choir, and Rebecca played trumpet in SHS's orchestra, marching band and stage band. We were both the products of liberal Democratic households in an overwhelmingly Republican town, and we both thought we were right about everything.

Basically, we were the quintessential late 80s drama fags, right down to the bad hair experiments. So it was of little surprise when the administration -- perhaps Dr. Geddes himself, though I don't remember -- asked us to do the daily morning announcements. This was a simple, five-minute intercom broadcast aired throughout the school: "The G.O. bake sale takes place this afternoon in the hallway outside the cafeteria at 3 o' clock... Cheerleader try-outs are set for next Monday in the gym..." and so forth.

There wasn't much Rebecca and I could do to spice these ho-hum messages up, but we did add our own spin now and then. Mostly, these took the form of quick, barely audible asides:

Adam: The annual Summit High holiday concert is tomorrow night, so don't forget to get your tickets now!

Rebecca: Yes, they are selling like hotcakes.

Adam: (Hotcakes that nobody wants.)

Rebecca: (Exactly.)

Adam: (stifling a giggle) And don't forget the deadline for the Service Club's canned food drive for the homeless is this Tuesday...!

It occurs to me now that I still employ this "quick aside tag" style in my stand-up. There's something about the rhythm of it that just appeals to my ear.


Me and Rebecca before the senior prom, spring of 1989.

In order to read the morning announcements, Rebecca and I had to leave our respective homeroom classes at 11:00 a.m. and make our way down the administration's office, where a little sound booth was set up. My homeroom was Ms. Papio's Spanish class, during which I would eat my homemade lunch of ham and cheese on whole wheat with honey mustard. One morning while I was doing the announcements, Josh -- yes, the same Josh from the false crotch-grabbing accusation incident -- inserted a folded up piece of notebook paper into my sandwich, so that when I later bit into it I'd be chewing on paper. I'm telling you, he was a diabolical little shit.

Anyway, the day after my meeting with Dr. Geddes, as I made my way from Spanish class to the cafeteria for lunch hour, a sophomore stopped me in the hallway.

"Hey," she said. "You should know that Mr. Stubick started a petition against you and Rebecca. He wants you to be fired from the morning announcements."

I remember actually laughing out loud. "No way!" I said.

"Yes. He passed it around our English class today."

"On what grounds does he say we should be fired?" I wondered.

"Because you made fun of the homeless."

"When did we ever make fun of the homeless?!"

"When you were making announcement about a canned food drive, you were laughing. So he says you're insensitive to the homeless and should be fired."

The war was escalating.

T0 be continued.

Homo wishing he could continue now, but his assistant manager literally just dumped a pile of work on his desk. ♥