the fat

every June at my highschool, the seniors were allowed to put on a party on school property that traditionally was known as "the fat". No one really knew where the name came from, or if it meant anything. obviously it could have referred to mardi gras' fat tuesday, but there was never any confirmation of that. Some people, including my mother, thought it was a nasty acronym. though she'd never come out and say it, i figured moms must have thought it meant "fuck all teachers" or something equally youthful. for some reason, she believes that if the initials of your name spell a word, it means you are destined for good fortune in life. only recently did i find out that the mother of my hero, donald e. westlake, also holds the same superstition.

anyway, the best fat was probably the 'olympig fat' of 1990. all fats had to be themed and they began with a series of day-long events, culminating in the friday night 'fat dance'. basically it was an excuse to hang out by the river, get loaded and run amok through the school. for the olympig fat we staged a mock series of olympic-like events. i can't remember them all that well, but among the highlights was the one that involved duct-taping niners to the cafeteria wall and wagering* on who would stick the longest. the contest proved to be an impressive display of duct tape's power. The longest taped person lasted the whole lunch period. we had to cut him down though because he was slipping through the tape to the point where it had noosed around his windpipe and he was turning purple.

*normal school rules didn't apply during the fat.