Things Got YOLO at My School Disco

Minnie and Penelope owe me big time. Like, buy my Wrigley's and my rolling papers every week for a whole year, big-time. I’m still not sure what black magic they used to convince me to tag along to the school social, but for the two hours of my life that I will never get back, they are eternally indebted to me. Remember the lamest party you ever went to as a teenager? Well suck it up, I don’t want to know, because until you’ve been to a "social" at my school, you don’t know shit about having a bad time.

If you're too old to remember, a school social is essentially a Year 7 school disco for 17-year-olds, i.e. a room full of people who can't handle their booze being given booze and then the excuse to act like children, because it's held in a school. What's also changed since Year 7 is that WE HAVE LIBIDOS NOW – big, screaming, insistent libidos that seem to have been paid-off by Darwin to contract us terminal STDs, thus ushering the idiots among us away from the gene pool forever. If you've known one school disco (and you must have, unless you were raised on a gypsy campsite or something? IDK) then really, you know them all: cider, groping, slut-dropping to "Tiger Feet" / "I Ran (So Far Away)" / "Saturday Night" / "All Of The Lights" (delete as per level of decrepitude).

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the concept of a weekday night out repels me, but there are definitely things I’d rather be doing on a Wednesday evening. Pumicing my toes, for example, or writing withering zangs in my burn-book. Yes, a slurp of WKD behind a dumpster can be fun, but standing in the science block watching the controlled chaos of a budget Katy Perry video unfold before me is pretty ghastly. In fact, if I didn’t have such a visceral sense of my own existence (or desire to film my peers gyrating to Taylor Swift for future blackmail material), I probably would have gone upstairs and swan-dived out of the chem lab window, just to make it all stop.

“Uuuurgh, my Gaawhd,” drawls Pen as we shuffle in. “I think I might like, die of asthma… and shame.” Both fair points, Pen; the whole place reeks of that familiar odour of Smirnoff Ice, Lynx Africa and desperation. Plus, what with all the polyester peplums, crispy, lacquered barnets, and Bunsen burners, this room is almost definitely a fire hazard. Gazing around, I have visions of everyone around me drowning and blistering and screaming in flames. Is this the most fun I'll have all night?

It’s kind of obscene how much money everyone’s mums have spunked on all the cheeky diamante numbers from Lipsy, just so we can get some furtive snogging and daggering in on the dancefloor before bed time. Obviously the boys are just as bad: Jarvis Cocker looks, Joey Essex sensibilities. In a feeble attempt to reel in the classiest girls, which clashes amazingly well with the UK garage "MCing" that’s going on in one corner of the room, bad suits, floral shirts and predatory snarls seem to be the sartorial order of the day.

Surprisingly, self-appointed man-eater Rebecca Knadwell is nowhere to be found. I listen out for any telltale slobbering or sniffing in the toilet cubicles, but all I hear is a Year 12 barfing. I’m so mystified by her disappearance that I nearly collapse onto a pile of passed-out amateurs (or maybe seasoned pros?) in the corridor. Fuck you, Knadwell, you manage to trip me up even when you’re not in the room. In my experience, R-Knadders only ever pulls a no-show because she’s got some seriously amorous alternative plans, which we’ll doubtless hear all about while choking down muesli bars in assembly tomorrow. Beyond excited.

Feeling a little deflated that we don’t get to see any of Rebecca’s diamante belly-bar tonight, me, Pen and Minnie lurk by the side of the dancefloor playing classic social time-passer Peep The Pum. The basic premise of PTP is that whoever glimpses the most inappropriate body parts wins. Six buttocks and three nipples in, I’m the champion and things are looking up, right? Not for long, sadly this night of raucous teen passion ends badly. Rumours of "out of school boys" showing up begin to circulate, culminating in some wonderfully half-hearted wall punching from a couple of threatened boyfriends. Seething mothers show up and issue complaints, apparently pissed off at having to pick up their gin-soaked Casanovas, but probably just jealous that they hadn’t been drinking in a back room somewhere for the past four hours alongside them. Chastised, we all drunkenly lurch home.

To be fair, the failure isn’t really a big surprise; the school Head Girl kind of struggled to keep an eye on things, largely because she spent the night fumbling in a hedge with a Year 12. But who am I to criticise? As everyone within three feet of me seems so fond of repeating: YOLO.

Anyway, I have to go. Brett, my autistic heartthrob, just sent me a Facebook message saying that the rhinestone case on my iPhone is “an insult to Steve Jobs’ memory”. I better go placate him because if he steals my phone tomorrow I’ll have to retrieve it from his lair, and will probz get skinned and made into a pillowcase. Speak later! (Maybe?)

Previously: Tru Luv Lasts Forever

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