the miseducation of patrick dunn
Patrick currently resides deep in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. He sucks at sports, can't play any musical instruments, and suffers from crippling anxiety. In his spare time, he can be found trying to beat his best friend's score at Ms. Pacman or passed out on the couch after a tiring day of Law & Order: SVU reruns. His favorite things include television, music, and comedy. He dislikes almost everything else, especially the Tori episodes of Saved by the Bell.
In my high school, if a class you really wanted to take was filled or you were just too lazy to pass in the course registration forms, you found yourself stuck in Intro to Home Economics. The course itself was an easy A, but the curriculum hadn’t been updated for several decades, which was great if you aspired to be a 50s homemaker. The teenage girls of the 90s that often took this class were of a different breed. Collectively, they were influenced by the rage of an in her prime Courtney Love, the raw sexuality of Gwen Stefani, and the fire-starting energy of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. Now somewhere in the middle of all of this madness stood me, the only male in the classroom; as aforementioned, I was too lazy to pass in the course registration forms.
Our teacher attempted to prep the girls for a lifetime of serving their families, and myself, if I ever got involved in a Who’s the Boss-type situation. Wars would often break out between the students and the teacher on a daily basis relating to the obsolete methods of the lesson plan. I remember one day where we were learning how to properly set a dinner table. One girl rolled her eyes at the idea of society dictating where to properly place the eating utensils, “This is utter bullshit,” she huffed, “When I’m thirty years old and come home from a day of work, I’ll put the fork and knife where I damn well please!”
She was kicked out of the class.
A few weeks later, we abandoned the kitchen, which resembled a miniature version of a Father Knows Best set, and entered the sad, lonely world of the sewing room. A cloud of awkwardness always hung in the air during Home Economics class. While instructing us on how to properly thread the bobbin, our teacher shared her theory that the secret to keeping a man was knowing how to hem a pair of pants. I would always sit in the back of the classroom in hopes of blending into the wall whenever comments of this nature were spoken.
Anyway, after a few registered complaints from some of the other students and their parents, we spent the rest of the school year making Rice Krispie treats and deep-frying french fries and mozzarella sticks, you know, the stuff that really mattered to us.
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katdvs said:
Ya know, I think I spent most of my Senior year in a Home Economics class with the dept. being called Consumer and Family studies. I think in one class we spent most of it watching videos.
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