Since My Day...

The Catholic High School Mixer

Wielding only a flash light and a yellow shirt that read "Staff," I was the reluctant guardian of 1500 high school kids ages 15-17 at the Back to School Mixer.

I arrived onsite to a throng of segregated girls and boys. This was a night unlike others. My high school is an all-male Catholic high school, and its mixers, for whatever reason, draw more girls than all the frat houses (from our college days of yore) combined. The two opposite sexes entered the school gym in two opposite sides, the boys in the back, the girls by way of the front. There were easily more people in attendance outside than went to my college. I walked past several hundred girls keeping my eyes on the prize (the door) and ignoring the combination of their perfumes (only someone who's dead wears that much perfume). I had an orange piece of paper folded in my pocket--instructions on my responsibilities that night. Here's how they were actually broken down:

Phase 1

Make a presence in the gym as teenagers enter. I crossed my arms behind my back and assumed an army at-attention stance. Meanwhile, teachers were searching girls' belongings and seizing water bottles, containers of perfume, and hairspray. Apparently in mixers' past, girls had smuggled in alcohol by means of these innocuous bottles. About 25% of the girls would walk in, take off an outer layer to reveal spaghetti straps, and be immediately grabbed by the Dean and reminded clothing wasn't optional.

The next hour was pretty tame as the gym filled with kids. Not surprisingly, the sexes were still segregated--girls dancing with girls, boys pretending not to watch. The girls' clothing left little to the imagination and the boys were varying degrees of gangsta or I-Just-Got-Out-of-Bed. Despite their apparel, that girls would grind with one another (before being broken up by yours truly), or that the boys were doing their best impressions of hyphy, it was during this first blooming hour that I saw a true innocence.

Without a frontal lobe for impulse control, their poor little brains grappled with the event unfolding. MTV says, "loud music, poorly lit arena, bodies, sweat--let's get it on!" While the event organizers (good Catholic folk, and then me) were saying, "Leave room for Jesus!" I was entertained that these horny kids were so scared and oblivious as to how to deal with their opposites. The boys, dressed to kill, would find any excuse NOT to interact with the girls. This included strutting up to me or other teachers prefecting and chatting it up. We've all done this at a party--spot the one person you at least know and attach yourself to them. But in this case, their latching onto the authority figures they usually detest for assigning too much Spanish homework!

Things eventually picked up.

Phase Two

I supervised the volunteer kids who were pouring water for the sweaty party-goers. Nothing going, except that even when it's just water, kids will hold it like it's a beer, and slam the table like they're ordering bourbon.

Phase Three

Now I'm patrolling outside in what is essentially a dog-run that the kids can escape to from the heat of inside (the walls are sweating by now). As my colleagues make loops through the crowd trying to break up as much "freaking" as possible, I was outside in the cold. There are different ways to remind kids they're not living up to God's expectations, and I've alluded to one of them already (Leave room for Jesus), but the one we use is "Imagine I was her father." Can you see that working coming from me? I think that's why I was outside...

Mind you, it's asphalt and concrete out here, but the unlit area still encourages the kids to make out. Lying on the asphalt...leaning against a concrete wall...making out. My job was mostly to ruin the fun. It's incredibly awkward to break up a tongue party, but I just remembered what grandma said about rattlesnakes: "They're feeling more awkward than you are." I let my flashlight do most of the talking, and it worked. These kids are so terrified mommy and daddy might be called, they'll listen to gentle reminders of Christian living from a flashlight.

Phase Four

After the kids were all gone, we opened up a classroom and drank beer for a few hours. Nothing like getting shitty with some old mentors!