Classholes

I’ve met a lot of older people set in their ways. They expect breakfast served no later than 10:00 AM, fruit sliced a certain way and tobacco stuffed into a pipe. Even my Dad, while watching a sitcom, will reflect on the days when saying “son of a bitch” on television was not even an option.

We younger people tend to think of previous generations as groups of bitter old people with diaper rash. We tend to look at their “crotchety” behavior as counteraction against our youthful, and often, jubilant manner.

Is this really the case?

I attended a private school in the South Hills of Pittsburgh during seventh and eighth grade. My classmates and I wore uniforms every day - white, button-down shirts, blue slacks (pants) and dress shoes. We had gym class once a week, which required us to change into our “gym clothes” (in other words, “clothes that public school kids wore”).
Sure, we enjoyed “slumming” in our play clothes for 40 minutes or so, but it required shedding some clothes in front of each other.

It took only a few weeks at this school to realize that each boy had their specific area on the bathroom floor. Chris changed closest to the door while I stayed in front of three sinks, behind an orange partition. Dan stayed against the wall, between Chris and Dave, who changed in front of the stalls in the back. Kevin’s spot was adjacent to Dave’s, while Matt and Jon’s spot remained in front of the urinals, next to the sinks.

For over a year, I observed their behavior. Were the girls doing the same thing? Why did we assume our positions? Were we being conditioned by our teachers to establish routine?

The more I thought about it, the more my theories made sense. We had assigned seats in almost every class. In the library, we were allowed to sit wherever we wished, but for some reason, we usually took the same seats. This situation applied at the lunch table as well.

And like these places, our positions in the bathroom were entirely up to us. We were establishing our own rules – our own routines! As most other eighth graders I knew, I was not fond of routine – it made life too predicable and thus boring.

So one day, when we went to change for gym, I made sure to be one of the first to enter the restroom. I passed my spot near the orange partition and dropped my bag of clothes in Dan’s area. The rest of my classmates soon followed into the restroom, noticing my move. They looked at me with eyes that said, “What are you doing?” They appeared very concerned of the move and the impending results.

Dan was one of the last to enter the bathroom. He looked at me. Then he looked at my spot near the partition.

“Ebel, what are you doing?” he asked.

I didn’t play dumb. “Thought I’d change it up a bit,” I told him.

Dan had nowhere else to go besides my regular spot. The restroom was silent as all eyes stayed on me and Dan. The only noise came from Dan, who became increasingly verbal with his opinion for me. “You wanna be me?” he asked. Occasionally, Kevin, another “classhole,” chimed in with a “Yeah, Ebel” or a “You’re such a loser.”

The taunting continued throughout gym class. Every chance Dan got, he would toss either an insult or a dodgeball at me. I never took his threats or put-downs to heart. Instead, I saw myself as a patriot – someone who stood in the face of public humiliation for the sake of independent choice. I was an American hero.

Dan’s name-calling lasted throughout the remainder of the school day, even during “silent reading hour.” Nevertheless, I had proven that crotchety behavior is not something one acquires at middle age; it is a gradual transformation that starts in one’s pubescent years. Students who took “assigned seating” to heart were in the process of becoming more than “classholes” – they were preparing themselves for a lifetime of monotony.