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06/29/2007: Summer Megaparty: I Hate Hat Day.

“Hat Day.” Separately, I’m fine with those two words. Together, I hate them as much as I hate anything in this world. Here’s why:

I was a loser in junior high. No other way to describe it. I had my share of friends in grade school and was pretty okay with the world at large, but my mind and body decided to enter its awkward stage on the first day of the sixth grade, and stayed that way until I got to high school. I was goofy, round-faced, inadequate, and worst of all, I wore terrible clothes. Like, knockoff Skidz pants with Syracuse Orangemen t-shirts, which I only wore because I thought the orange mascot was cool. People would ask me who my favorite player was, and I couldn’t even tell them what sport the Orangemen participated in.

Junior high was the most miserable time of my life, and I could tell you a thousand hilarious stories about my tremendous social failures throughout it, but they aren’t relevant to this particular story. I just wanted you to have some context before I tell you about a little old thing called “Hat Day.”

In the seventh grade, our teachers informed us of the upcoming special event known as “Hat Day.” On this day and this day only, students were allowed to wear hats during classes. They told us that those who wore the most creative, extravagant hats would win prizes. While I usually shied away from anything resembling the spotlight, something clicked.

So I went home, grabbed a gigantic cardboard box, taped it to a cumbersome construction hat and fashioned myself a hat version of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. This thing was hideous. Two feet tall, bulky, with casino highlights crudely drawn on in crayon. Fourteen rolls of scotch tape liberally plastered all over the hat. I was pretty proud of it at the time, and because I falsely considered “Hat Day” more like a skewed version of the yearly science fair, I boldly entered the courtyard…with a cardboard Trump Taj Mahal on top of my head.

And what did I see? What products of the artist’s mind had my fellow students worn? 500 baseball caps. I was one of maybe a dozen students who made wacky hats, and of them, my stupid casino resort was by far the largest, corniest and most absurd. It took all of three seconds for everyone in sight distance to point and laugh, and it was only going to get worse from there.

Because I was one of very few students with a “creative” hat, and because mine was the size of a Ford Taurus, I was selected as one of the big winners. Would I win a new television, or maybe free tickets to Six Flags? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Forget the televisions. My “reward” was a special “Hat Day” assembly, in which the ten kids with the best hats got to march in a circle up on stage in front of a jam-packed auditorium of laughing classmates. For like ten whole minutes, we just stood there walking in circles, trying to fight the tears as we struggled to keep our stupid, cumbersome hats from falling off. Aside from being forced to practice my nude robot dance on national television, I can think of nothing more embarrassing.

Upon returning from school, I didn’t even make it into the house before kicking and ripping my Trump Taj Mahal hat into a zillion pieces. As I recall, I convinced my mother to let me stay home the next day, in the hopes that by the time I got back to school, everyone would’ve forgotten that they’d last seen me getting dizzy onstage with a cardboard hotel on my head. They did not.

Oh, I did get one small tangible prize aside from the glory of being a sideshow attraction at a school assembly. They made me a button.

I really, really hated “Hat Day.”

Sorry for the double post, but I had to bask in the glory of the FIRST POST EVAR for me! I remember hat day in school. I remember being the butt of jokes when I wore my cat in the hat hat, complete with stripes of not red and white, but school colors, teal and texas orange. I don’t know where the photographic evidence is located but I am sure it is worse than your Taj hat.

PS Great stuff so far and not one person has called me on my quirks since my return.

HAHAHAHA oh you poor thing. That is a priceless memory though. Let’s see the whole button, come on

Already late for heading back to work…how I sometimes wish we had a worksafe URL. Oh well.

No way — I’m making the worst face ever, which is what happens when teachers enter a homeroom and make you put on a hotel/hat in front of 25 students who’ve already laughed at you endlessly for it.

OH GOD…hat day *shudder* I also recall hat day. and let me tell you. I thought it would be VERY clever to make the top of a plain top hat into a kind of birthday cake, you know, glue on some candles, construction paper flames. and my mom thought it was hideous, and thuse believed she could live through me by constructing a better hat. Well she bought a hat and decorated it with hideous giant fake flowers like some kind of “garden” hat and I was so embarrassed the whole day I tried to hide it under my desk while 100 other kids wore Toronto Blue Jays hats. And then my teacher made me pull it out and put it on so everyone could see and the hat was too small for my head so i had to balance a slightly irregular straw hat with giant plastic flowers on my head just long enough to create a horrible memory. *sigh* oh god I think my mom made me keep it in my room as a horrible decoration and torture device until I was old enough to re-decorate… ugh bad re-hash…

Well, I kind of like the hat. You did a much nicer job on it than I would’ve. Are those star stickers those foil ones that come in columns of red, blue, green, gold, and silver? Those win.

I remember when my school had some kind of spirit day, I think honoring the Atlanta Braves. I’ve never liked sports so I didn’t have any Braves gear, but since other kids were wearing Braves hats I thought it would be okay to join in the fun by wearing my American flag hat. The teacher made me take it off.

that makes me feel kinda sad. at least you got a sweet button out of the deal…

Personally I think the hat rocks, fuck all dem jealous ass hataz Matt, ya dig?

Reminds me of when I got off the plane from Cancun. I bought this sombrero that was literally ATLEAST 3 feet wide and it was too large to roll up and put in my luggage full of empty yard cups so I had to wear it on the plane.

I’m walking my skinny ass (6′1″ 160 lbs) down the terminal with this huge ass poker table sized hat on my head. Everybody was staring at me, though I really didn’t care because I was still kinda drunk and sleep deprived, but it was something else having an entire airport stare at you.

Man, I remember hat day. It was part of a theme week in elementary school– we had all different sorts of days– each one more asinine than its predecessor. I really wanted to wear a blue baseball cap that said “I’m Only Here for the Beer” on it, complete with an awesomely stitched image of a frothy mug… But alas, my mother disallowed it. I haven’t seen the hat in years and wish I still had it– it could really come in handy in avoiding having to talk to people at parties.

Oh my god. This is the funniest blog ever. I laughed at your expense, and for this I feel sorry for you and your hat.

What the hell is wrong with your school to make you parade around in a hat that humiliated you?!

Awww…that is adorable and sad all at the same time. Poor little junior-high-Matt. I can see enough of that expression on the button to make me want to give your past self a hug and a cookie. Can you send those retroactively?

I must say, we never did have this “Hat Day” you all speak of at my school. We did have wacky hair day, but what with it being a small town famous for marijuana, quite a few of the entries were rather imaginative. Come to think of it, we had a lot of weird days like that - wacky tie day, ‘best’ foot forward day (dress up one of your feet in a godawful and embarassing way), Christmas hair day (always my favourite - one girl had her hair done up as a bonafide Christmas tree one year, complete with ornaments and battery-operated lights) etc. etc. Ah, the joys of small town life on the west coast. Also, one of the few environments where a guy can dress up as Marilyn Monroe for Halloween and still be considered one of the cool kids. Then again, I’m talking about the same kid that had a fight with a wall. Hmm…I’m not sure I ever really noticed how strange our ‘cool’ people were. Makes you wonder about the outcasts, doesn’t it?

Ah, the evils of hat day, at my schools, the evils were always extended into that 5-fold hell called ‘Spirit Week’. Each day worse than the last. In addition to hat day we were forced to endure Pajama day, Twin day, School Colors Day, and scariest of all, Hippy day, wherein 11 year olds were encouraged to dress in tie-dye, carry plastic flowers around and pretend to be stoned. Yeah, having kids emulate hippies is a really great way to keep them drug free.

I can sympathize with you on being an outcast in Jr. High since I was one too, the amazing part is that of the few “in crowd” folks that ended up going to the same college as me- not one of them finished.

I miss the last day of school in December before Christmas Vacation. We would have a half day ceremony after lunch and it was great. Only Oklahomans would understand this, but we would all sing the BC Clark anniversary sale jingle. Annette and Kingklash will know what I’m talking about. But that day was my favorite school day ever, even better than the last day of school before summer vacation.

Middle school was also a torture chamber of education for me. What a horrible time to be alive.

Awwa, you poor thing. We have spirit week too. Nothing worse than walking in on baseball day wearing a mets shirt while the rest of the school (wearing Yankees gear) stares at you like you have two heads.(even the science teacher!) I never like spirit days anyway.

But… yours was the grandest of all!
Y’know though, every day here at the X is Matt Day.

Your experience reminds me of these “Random Acts of Kindness” buttons they used to hand out at my elementary school. At our weekly assembly, everyone who got one that week would have to to go to the front of the gym and do some dance. This disco-monkey thing. Really now, how’s that gonna inspire kindness?

And wait…Matt, you made a hat of the Taj Mahal hotel… in 8th grade!? Impressive. Going back a bit your whole life really has been “engulfed in this shit” huh? And whatever they thought, fuck em. You know what the score is.

“For like ten whole minutes, we just stood there walking in circles, trying to fight the tears as we struggled to keep our stupid, cumbersome hats from falling off. Aside from being forced to practice my nude robot dance on national television, I can think of nothing more embarrassing”

Oh god, this is both the saddest AND most hilarious thing I have ever read…I’m in tears!! Best summer megaparty post ever!

While I love most X-E posts (and though I don’t comment often, I’ve been reading for years and years), my very favorites are the human interest stories…articles like these, food reviews(the McGriddle article and Wendy’s dollar menu are still among the funniest things I’ve EVER read on the web), crude arts & crafts projects, ghost with the most cartoons…this is what keeps me coming back every day.

Oh, Matt! That was a wonderful(ly sad) story. I love that hat idea, though. I’m sorry that all those kids laughed at you. (I wouldn’t have.) And what is with teachers? Making us parade around our embarassing ideas because they think it’s “cute” or something.
—
I never participated in hat day, mostly because my head is quite large, but also because I find hats in general to be uncomfortable. We did have spirit week, though, and in fourth grade we had “dress up as your favorite book character” day. While my peers were “a member of the Babysitters Club”- and not even a distinct one, I was Matthias, from Redwall. Lucky for me people thought it was awesome, even though nobody read the book. I wish I had a photo- even a bad one. I got laughed at for enough stuff, though, and sixth grade was pretty bad, so I feel your pain.

In seventh grade, I found a pretty fly pair of purple Ninja Turtles pants at TJ Maxx. I persuaded my mom to buy them for me, thinking I’d get some laughs the next day, but nothing worse than something along the lines of, “Man, that dude is crazy!”
Sure enough, within three minutes of me walking into school that day, I knew I’d erred in judgment like I’ve never erred before. Oh, the mockery I endured. I tried to play it off all day like I’d worn the pants as a joke (which was about 50 percent true). No one was buying that. I kept those pants for YEARS afterward as a reminder to think before trying to be too wacky.
Of course, a few months after that when I started getting into music, I was mocked just as relentlessly for wearing a Pearl Jam shirt. “Look at the geek trying to be trendy!” Sheez.
So Matt, I’m with ya, brotha.

I LOVE the Saved by the Bell articles. Screeches Stupid Birthday is one of my fav articles ever.

I also love all the crazy little adventures his action figures get caught into, like the Pepsi Blue article.

The Ninja Turtle/Spongebob popsicle melting battle was very intense and also stands as one of my favorite articles.

There was a quarter machine article where Matt used commented on something either inside the machine, or inside the plastic egg, as “penis escrement” or something similar to that, does anybody remember this article?

I thought it may have been the one he referenced the other day, but after a quick scan, I couldn’t find it. I know, I know, I could invest a few minutes to really dig, but meh… I do a google search for “penis escrement” but it comes up with tons of porn sites.

“Where Matt used commented on something” should be read as “Where Matt commented on something”

You’ll have to excuse my ignorance, I’m trying to find my Gweneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis - “Cruisin’” mp3 to put on my flash drive before I go home.

Matt, I don’t know what to say. I think it was pretty hip. I wouldn’t be reading your articles if you wore some conformist NY Jets or Mets hat. Like Shuan said, that is why we love you.

I went to Catholic school and we only had “No Tie Day.” This is why I listen to ACDC and have Satan over for coffee every Thursday.

My heart just shattered into a thousand pieces. At least your awkward stage only lasted those few years…mine began around fourth grade and lasted into college. I think.

“This is why I listen to ACDC and have Satan over for coffee every Thursday.”

Hmph! He told me Thursdays were visitation days for his children. Someone’s got some explaining to do.

Wow…Big hat. Did they have to release any backed up spinal fluid after wearing that hat?

Ya, that hat day sucked for you…. I once got dressed up for opposite… not on opposite day. Does anyone else here, when not on this site just cruise icanhascheezburger.com or lolcats.com? I feel like I’m not alone here

We never really did anything like Hat Day at our junior high school. Anybody who would have participated would have just ended up being made fun of. I didn’t really help that I went to a public shool where we were forced to wear uniforms.
We didn’t even do anything like that at my high school, either. There was a yearly magnet school fair, but like most school fairs, the booths were pretty lame, and thus totally forgettable. The only noteworthy thing at our school was the yearly senior prank; my class just toilet-papered a few trees, whereas someone in the class two years before us actually cut a tree down. I think that was when they installed the security cameras.

Brilliantpants,
you just totally reminded me of how my high school did indeed have a “Spirit Week”. I think we even did have a Pajama Day that week. But I couldn’t tell you any of the other theme days for the life of me. I never cared enough about school spirit to even participate.

Hey, Matt, junior high sucks, but look at it this way, at least you were creative instead of being a bunch of losers like those who laughed at you instead of with you. Plus, I gotta tell you, it’s almost Friday night, and it’s raining. I may have to write a poem about how much I love rainy Friday nights.

We also did Spirit Weeks. I remember PJ day, backwards day, and hat day. Don’t remember the other two.

Thanks for taking me back to my most hated years… junior high sucked. Ugh, I remember spirit week too. The first day was pajama day and, since I slept nude (still do to be honest), I decided against participating. My teacher asked me if I thought I was “too good” for it or something, in front of the whole class. It shut her up real quick though when I announced to the class that I slept “au naturale”. :) So on the second day (hat day) I wore a hat with a piece of paper taped to it that said “Yes, I AM too good for this”. For the third day, book day, I dressed up as Pennywise from “It”, complete with blood-soaked mouth and fake severed head. I was asked not to participate in the rest of the week…. God I hated junior high as much as my junior high teachers hated me!

Last night I got spooked by a children’s book.
Was in Wal-Mart, and passed by the section by the toys with the Dr Suess books and such. I spotted a movie book of the TransFormers movie. Flipping through the simplified story, I got to the part where Prime calls Sam by his full name. “Samuel Ja…” Eep! When you read a version of your own name in the middle of Wal-Mart (the last place you expect, in the last place you expect, in that order), that’s when you just go home and burrow under your covers the rest of the night.

Anyone who says they enjoyed Junior High is either a dirty liar or the spawn of Satan.

I dated a girl, once, who enjoyed both junior high and high school. I believe her to be both soulless, and possibly the emptiest, fakest human I have even come into contact with. But God, was she easy

Jr. high (by that point “middle school”) was 7th and 8th grade for me- 7th was decent, but 8th was by far the best year ever. High school wasn’t that terrible overall, but I don’t think I’d want to go back. I know, I was surprised, too.

I never really participated in Hat Day, but we always had a little event called Spirit Week. Every day was a different theme, and when I was in middle school, they had “Tacky Day”. I thought I’d be cute and dress all mismatched and gross. I wore the most ridiculous shit I could come up with. Unfortunately, nobody else was feeling the tacky spirit that day. I was so embarrassed that I called my mom and made her come and bring me some normal clothes.

School pretty much sucked for me from like, third grade all the way up to seventh. Eighth was okay, and it got better from there. But…I don’t think I’d go back, either. If I had a chance to go back in time, you’d better believe I’d be going back a little further than 1997.

Man, I remember stuff like this…we still did it in high school as well. Last year, as a high school teacher I always participated to the fullest, to make the few kids who dressed up feel less alone- hey I was AT THE FRONT OF THE ROOM ALL DAY, right??

Most of the other teachers did NOT participate, and actually made fun of the students and were mean spirited about the whole thing…of course, they are all nearing retirement.

And ‘dress up day’ resulted in two girls being sent home for being dressed too slut-ish. Plus, a few were made to change into their gym clothes to cover up as well…

Be honest, Muppet Baby - you know it was really you who was sent home.
If I had thought my teachers were making fun of me, I would have been kind of sad. Then again, they were priests and nuns. It was like spirit week every week for them.

Matt, if it will make you feel better I will share my Middle School torture tales with you.

In 7th grade I was in wood shop cutting a stupid paisley shape on the jigsaw and some stupid A-Hole (Mark B) was messing around with another A-Hole (Russell) behind me. A-Hole #1 bumped my arm and sent my middle finger into the jigsaw…down to the first friggen joint. I walk up to the shop teacher and say “I think I cut myself” (brilliant observation, I know) and then the next thing I know I was looking up at everyone from the floor. The shop teacher thought it would be funny to share that my head sounded like a melon so that got some extra laughs at my expense. To this day I HATE PAISLEY!

Then to top it all of, in 8th grade I got food poisoning in Home Ec and projectile vomited in class. That was fun.

Thankfully I was clever enough to laugh it off both years so people let it go quickly but I still bare the scars on my psyche.

I’m not going to lie to you, Matt. When I got done reading this entry, I laughed heartily while pointing in a generally northeasterly direction. But then I made myself feel bad, so I think that’s okay.

Junior high sucked. It wasn’t too bad until the principal convinced himself that I was depressed and kept calling me into his office to have little chats, presumably to bring me back from the brink of suicide. Apparently, when I’m not making the effort to wear an expression, my face naturally looks pretty bummed out. So it got a little awkward the dozenth time he called me into his office to say, “Jedoc, you’ve been looking pretty down lately” and I had to explain ONCE AGAIN, “No sir. I’m afraid that’s just my face.” But at least he let me raid the concession for free candy.

My most embarrassing spirit week overachievement probably would have been opposite sex day. I had bushy brown hair and when we curled it, I ended up looking exactly like our algebra teacher. And I put on all kinds of makeup, wore a floral printed dress, and brought a blue plastic purse. And like three other guys dressed up.

I say “would have” because I was rescued by the dude in our class who dressed up in a cheerleader skirt with massive bazongas and did cartwheels across the stage. People more or less forgot about me at that point.

Oh, and then the next day for celebrity day I dressed up like Alfalfa, and a state official from the G&T office came to administer an IQ test. That was sort of awkward. “Yeah, you know what? Never mind. I think I got all I need here.”

Also, I just read the article again, and I’m shamelessly stealing the phrase “tremendous social failures” to describe my own formative years. Although “mondo social failures” does have a charming irony about it.

I didn’t participate in most hat days because I never really owned many hats as a child. I remember having one of those big demin sunflower hats but that’s about it. But I did beat everyone’s ass in Clash Day in elementary school with my mighty combination of plaids of stripes. Boo yeah. I think I still have that old photo tucked away.

The other day I ran into someone that went to middle school with me briefly and she looked at me and was all, “Hey I know you! You used to hang out with all those girls that liked Sailor Moon!”

Yeah. My friends and I formed a Sailor Moon club in middle school. We were that awesome.

awwww story’s like that get all the lady’s to love you for your sensitive side.

We never did anything like this in junior high, because I went to a “special” school for troubled and disabled kids during those years, but we did have Spirit Week in high school. Not that most people took part, including me, but thank goodness they didn’t make us parade around in them.

The worst was “Funky 70s Day” - there’s a picture in my junior yearbook of a couple of kids in their idea of disco threads. Thank goodness it’s a black-and-white shot, or the reader might go blind from the ugly neon polyester suits and low-as-you-dare blouses.

Mine is this year and I am so not going. Like you I loathed most all those whom I went with,and thanks to myspace I have now seen they became pure trash while I live a good life. Karma is a bitch I tell ya.

You people are making me insert numbers to all my posts now to address all the key issues.
(1) Similar to Matt and Commander Awesome’s tales of middle school woe: 7th grade, Halloween. I knew it would be uncool to wear a “real” costume. HOWEVER, I wanted to be wacky and would miscalculate a joke that no one would find the least bit funny. *SIGH* I wore a bath robe, a Miami Hurricanes tank top, and flip-flop slipper things (??). Basically, I was using Halloween to wear sleep clothes to school. And to top it all off (MY GOD, I MUST REALLY LOVE/TRUST YOU PEOPLE), I wore a cheap plastic arrow through the head thing.
I wasn’t sent home but, needless to say, I did not get the reaction I thought I would get. Where were my parents??
(2) I dress up for SPIRIT WEEK’s at school now a la MUPPET BABY’s post. There’s a picture of me somewhere on a SNT dressed up in my regalia. (Kneg??)

Hat day — I usually wore a ball cap. My embarrassment came on Halloween - 7th grade — when I dressed up as an old lady. Complete with old lady dress, fake boobs, makeup, the works…While I did get 2nd prize, I also got made fun of. A lot.

Forgive the double post but I agree with shortcake79’s assertion that MySpace has killed the notion of a high school reunion. One of the reasons I am not going to my 10 year this year is MySpace has already pulled back the veil on the ravages of aging.

If it makes you feel any better I had a similar situation at school during halloween. We were told we could wear a costume and seeing as it was the early 90’s I had a brilliant idea (at the time).
I had a couple of Roddy Piper “Hot-Rod!” shirts (from my name you can probably guess I’m a Piper and Transformer mark), so I went around town and found a kilt…Yeah..a kilt…
So here I am, walking into class wearing a Roddy Piper costume. The worst part was my first class was JROTC where I was the 1st Sgt. and responsible for standing in the front of the class and taking roll. Not fun…Not fun…

I do the same thing now with my class. In fact,I am always the silliest looking one of all. I wonder if I am trying to make up for old times,and now no one can say I’m strange for doing it. Maybe being a grown up isn’t so bad after all. LOL!!!

I truly haven’t laughed as hard as I did when reading this article in quite some time. My throat actually hurts a little bit right now. That was a classic story. Hilarious.

Since I have laughed at one of your most embarrasing moments I suppose it is only fair that I share one of my own as well. In scouring the ol’ memory banks for a sixth grade tale I did come up with something…

I was lucky enough to live only a few blocks from the elementary school I attended in sixth grade. This of course meant that I wasn’t subjected to a bus ride to-and-from school everyday. Most of the time I just walked, but on other days, special days, I would ride my bike and lock it up in the school’s bike rack. I remember it was a brisk October afternoon. The dismissal bell had just rang and I was out the door and on my bike for the short trek back home. Hey, if I was lucky I would have an issue of Nintendo Power waiting for me!

Not a block from the school I proceeded to wipe out on my bike and completely flip over the handlebars, landing in the grass between the sidewalk and street. The yard I was cutting through just happened to belong to one of those freaks who kept everything just so - the perfect yard. This of course meant that somehow they had created a groove of around one inch or two between the cement sidewalk and the grass of their yard. I suppose to keep everything clean looking and the grass perfectly trimmed. My front tire found that groove, when I was least expecting it, and my front wheel locked into it, propelling me straight forward, landing face and chest first into the ground.

As soon as I realized that I wasn’t hurt seriously my mind quickly switched to damage-control mode. I knew I was still well within viewing distance of the school and there could be dozens of kids either staring at me at that very moment, and if not, there would be very soon. I needed to get up and get up quickly. My entire reputation, what little of it there was, was at stake.

It was at that very moment that I heard the roar of a diesel engine very nearby.

I turn to my left to see a school bus, loaded with glaring, wide-eyed faces pass by on the street not ten feet from the scene of the crime. Half of the faces looked concerned while the other half were howling with laughter.

To make matters worse I was a new student at this school. I had been there maybe a month. It was certainly not the first impression I wanted to make.

Wow, that sucks. Reminds me of the clown play I had to endure during fifth grade, except worse because I was at least with 80 other clowns.

………….Except I was the only pissed off clown. Everyone else was happy, I was angry. I fuggin hate clowns.

I had a little red-headed step child tormentor in elementary school. His name was Ralph (isn’t it ALWAYS Ralph?)

Anyway, Ralph was a very aggressive tormentor. I don’t say Bully, because he didn’t have the guts to like beat people up or anything. He’d make comments, start rumors, insult, but never do things physically.

One day, in 5th grade I think, Hat Day rolls around. It was stupid, because I disliked hats and didn’t even own one. I asked for one. At the time, the Chicago Bulls were in the middle of their championship streak, so my mother, not knowing, got a hat.

I go in, and yes, Ralph had the same hat. I was content to take it off and just ignore the silliness.

Eventually, a year or two later, and about 30 lbs bigger due to weight training for wrestling, I flipped a lunch table to get at him. He backed off then. He still was calling me Copy Cat Fat, though.

Oh, things come back that you do though. Fast Forward 15 years. My father starts a new management position - and guess who works for him? Yep, Ralph. He’s an incompetent who would forget his tools, break other people’s and generally have no concept how to do his job (repair of large machinery).

So my father, at his first performance review, said he was not going to be renewed. On his way out, “By the way, Ralph, do you remember a large young boy you use to make fun of in elementary school? Copy Cat Fat’s father says your fired.”

Last I knew, he was serving a 3-5 for Domestic Abuse in an upstate NY Prison (and no, that’s not a joke, but it shows what being a little jerk in elementary school leads to.)

Our version of Hat Day in middle school was Yankee Day, which we celebrated every time the Yankees won the World Series. It was the only day we were allowed to wear hats, but only if they were Yankees caps.
One year, when the Yankees had beaten the Atlanta Braves, the school also hung a huge piece of paper in the main hallway for a few days and we were all allowed to write pro-Yankee statements on it. The school would then send the paper to the team, because I’m sure they wanted nothing more than a large piece of cheap brown paper with middle school student scrawlings all over it. A friend and I rebelled and wrote (in pencil and in microscopic letters in one corner) “Go Braves!”
Crazy like a fox.

We had pajama day which was also D.E.A.R. Day (for those who don’t know, that’s Drop Everything And Read Day). It was awesome because you could wear your pajamas to school and bring your sleeping bag and pillows and stuffed animals and just read all freaking day. My favorite day of the whole school year… except for the Halloween Radio Show. Did anyone else’s school do a radio show instead of an assembly on a certain day of the week?

Oh, and for the record, I CANNOT believe no one has referred to the headgear in question as The Taj Ma-hat.

I enjoyed your story, Matt I hope that didn’t kill your creative outgoing spirit. Sometimes it’s fun to bring attention to yourself, even with the risk of being made fun of.

Growing up the friends I made either betrayed me or moved. I had a group of friends though the middle or end of 6th grade until the middle of 10th grade. That was great even though I was still made fun of by the popular kids and still kept to myself most of the time. My friends were like me, shy and nerdy in some unique way, and were very nice. They moved eventually and I lost track of most of them except I found one about a year ago, she’s totally different it’s like getting to know a different person all together.

Anyway our spirit weeks usually were leading up to homecoming in high school, spirit day which were school colors (white green and black) pajama day, Hat day probably (which was cool in middle school because we couldn’t usually wear them) clash day (i remember blue plaid pants with little sunflowers on them which rarely matched anything anyway so that was easy) 50’s day, 60’s day, 70’s day, 80’s day we even had a 70’s day dance, this person wore awesome red coke a cola retropants and an afro, a girl, I wore hippie clothes, i had long hair at the time so I just wore a tie dye shirt and this girl snobbily said “this is the 70s not the 60’s” whateva to her. But usually I didn’t participate in school activities becuase i knew it just set me up to be made fun of.

Even though the last halloween I dressed up was my freshman year of high school and I dressed up in a weird al costume, the pothead slacker types made fun of me oh yes they did, so no more dressing up for me.

I vomited this last wednesday on a school bus full of adults (gaterade on a hot day, remember that kids that doesn’t mix even though it sounds good at the time) and I was suprisingly not embarrassed I enjoyed being the center of attention. I get that way sometimes.

That’s why I relate to the show freaks and geeks so much which I have been watching on Joox.net lately. I watched it when I was in high school too but I appreciate it in a new light lately. Joox.net f.ckin rules.

Are you asking me if I dress up for spirit day, Manimal? Or if I can find the post with the link to your pic in the blog archives?

The answers are no (I don’t have a permanent school as I’m still a substitute) and maybe if you really want me to, respectively. I’m sorry, I haven’t read this thread very carefully, I’m recovering from an allnighter.

Soooo, I bought TF: The movie on DVD, FINALLY. Every bit as mind-blowing as I remember and somehow even better. I also got Movie Jazz!! Not as cool design-wise as Optimus but c’mon Hong Kong Phooey, people!!! It’s all about nostalgia. When I went to buy Optimus, I went with my mom and it was like being 6 years old again. You can’t put a price on that.

Awww that’s just so sad! We had stupid days like that in middle school too. I remember 50’s day, pajama day, silly hair day, etc., etc. For pajama day I once wore Ninja Turtle pajamas. I was already considered to be in the “Nerd Herd” that’s what the other kids called me and my friends, so this sealed the deal completely. I guess an 11 year old girl in Ninja Turtle pjs is weird or something. Anyway the nerd herd rocks!

1. Puking in school- I can relate. First grade was worse, but eighth grade as pretty bad because it was twice in one day. No need to describe it.

2. How did I miss this one? Senior year, this one kid wrote up a two-page proposal for why we should wear hats in school. One-sided, single spaced, taped to the walls all over the school. It was riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes, and I think he managed to offend everybody. I took home a copy so I could laugh at it for the rest of my life. Hats in school- they’re trouble, I tell ya.

Saw Ratatouille today. I have but 3 words for this movie: VERY…VERY…GREAT. Easily the best new movie I’ve seen this year. Everything about it just seemed…perfect. I was laughing several times (even with all the little kids in the theater), and I was really in awe of the great animation (the physical comedy of Linguini is easily some of the best sequences I’ve seen in animation in quite some time).

The voice cast was just awesome. Patton Oswalt was the perfect choice for Remy (according to wikipedia, Brad Bird got the idea to cast him because of his act about “Black Angus” ads, a personal favorite bit of mine), along with Brad Garret (Gusteau, the great Chef in the movie), Janeane Garafalo (Collette, the only woman chef in the restaurant. I forgot it was her doing that voice!), Peter O’Toole just brought out the mean snobbery of Anton Ego the food critic. Not to mention the pixar regular John Ratzenberger in a role that I found it hard to find his voice (he plays Mustafa, the head waiter)

The short cartoon that plays before it, “Lifted” (about Alien Abduction) was just a great vision of things to come, with excellent designs of the spaceship, as well as the aliens and the animation that goes along with them. And there’s no dialogue at all in this one.

The Incredibles was my favorite pixar movie…but after watching this movie, I’m reconsidering it. Yes, trust the cartoon geek literally having a nerdgasm that will be complimented by Transformers & the Simpsons Movie later in July.

As on topic: I was never a fan of “spirit week” either and the themes changed every year, save for the constant “Green & White Day”, dressing in our school colors. Spirit Week followed to college, but fortunately, like high school, only a handful of people are actually into it and participate.

I, too remember DEAR day. That was back in the day that I had a ton of good books that I was into reading.

Did anyone else’s school do a radio show instead of an assembly on a certain day of the week?

I’d kill for something like that back then, and even now. 2 of the other colleges I applied for had a radio station, and one had a tv station to boot.

Oh, and I seem to look like Jason Bateman, not Justin, who doesn’t exist. Now I know that guy was drunk.

You don’t have to do that. I was just giving you your due as our resident archivist.

For those wondering: the kitty -Winston, btw, after my gradnfather who built the house I live in now- is home and doing well…he’s found a place to sleep -a kitchen chair- and was great when people came over earlier about not running or freaking out -well, to much anyway ;). Now if he can be sure to find his box and food again, all will be well with the world….

Reading these reminded me of my high school’s dress code. It basically said “you cannot do anything that is popular in today’s black youth culture” but one of the aspects was “no hats whatsoever.” (Others included no “grills”, no shirts with “gangster rappers,” (one kid wore a pair of pants covered with Tupac, Biggie, etc) and no sunglasses-in-hair because those are all gang symbols. That last one just doesn’t seem very gangster…) Sadly, this hat ban included Pep Rally days. For me, Pep Rallies on Fridays were the only days where you could come to school dressed like a commando, a riot cop (on hippie day, no less), a stereotyped nerd (which was removed because my school’s one stereotypical nerd was offended. Funny thing about it was that he won homecoming king. He didn’t realize it was a joke.), a Halloween costume (Matt, you’re the only one with access to who I dressed up as since you’re the only one who can read my e-mail addy from here), or a celebrity. Celebrity day got me going: I needed a celebrity that nobody else would think of and I had just the one - Charlie Chaplin. Of course, when it came to gathering the components of the costume, I was stuck since we weren’t allowed to wear hats and we weren’t allowed to have mustaches, or at least not Charlie Chaplin/Hitler mustaches. So I just didn’t dress up. Man, and I really wanted to get that hat…

I used to have Donald Duck hat which had his face on the cap, and his bill for the cap’s bill. I wore that on hat day for a couple years around 1st and 2nd grades.

Appreciated, Manimal. I feel like the guy in disaster movies who swims in the underwater section of the facility for ages to come up just to say that they lock mechanism isn’t working.

I did something tonight so classically embarrassing that I’m completely proud of it. I went out midnight bowling and while I was taking a shot my 14lb purple ball slipped out the back of my hand and went flying backwards at my friends. I fell on my knees laughing.

I think I’m either blissfully unaware or lucky, but I didn’t really get picked on. I avioded school spirit and it avioded me. I always came up with great ideas of what I would’ve done on so and so spirit day, but I never went through with them. Oh, not to mention a completly diregard of how others view what I wear. I mean hell I busted out orange wind pants and those pants that Chris KIrkpatrick of NSYNC wore in DIrty Pop.

Invader Norbert Talking about being jealous of radio stations and tv shows, the year literally, after I graduated my highschool started doing the announcements with students on a tv. They would push a tv into every classroom that didn’t have one apparently and do the annoucements everyday on a tv. I got to experience it once the last week of school. Also the local cable access airs them I seen it once it was cool. Cheap backdrop, outfits that looked like they were stolen from the Drama class, etc.

and Mystie great story

From what I just seen on your videos on youtube your friends deserve a random bowling ball thrown their way to remind them to straighten up. BTW anyone that even slightly enjoys Mystie’s posts here should go and watch all of her videos. But on the darkwing duck video don’t read the comments. GAWD what a pervert.

Matt, as awful as your story is, I gotta tell ya, I was just like you in middle school. Except, I was like that all the way through high school. And I was probably a lot larger (fat) than you were. Yeah, people looked at me the same way, and I did goofy stuff like that hat thing on a regular basis. No surprise I had few friends and no girl would go anywhere near me until college. But hey, look at you now man, this site, working for Nickelodeon, you showed them. Wish I could say the same.

Oh those comments are just from my douchey internet buddy. Our whole relationship is pretty much us insulting each other and saying horrible and shocking things via AIM. Like, the other day he asked if I’d fuck a dead whale and my response was, “How long has it been dead?”

Haaaaa look at that hat!Why the fudge would anyone consider that a good idea!Jesus!It’s friggin Hat Day just wear a baseball hat like everyone else and live the glory of knowing a teacher can’t do anything about it!Aw man…sorry dude.

Mystie: You know, I think everyone really needs a friend like that. For one thing, there’s all these wonderful insults floating around that would otherwise be completely unusable.

Aw, Mystie! My friends made a Sailor Moon club too! And, oh, 10 years later, in college, my friends and I dressed up as the 5 inner senshi (oh god, nerd alert, I’m sorry) for halloween. Which is not as nerdy as it could have been, because we actually have nice bodies, and made acurate costumes.

Hello everyone, I like this post. It certainly brought back some memories for me. We didn’t have hat day at my schools, but we had spirit week at my high school. Some of the themes varied from year to year. I remember school spirit day(where you wore clothes related to a college), 60’s day, 70’s day, and the day you just wpre a Halloween vostume(spirit week was usually the week leading up to or including Halloween). Now that I think of it, at my high school we might have had Spirit Week twice a year (one around Halloween, another at or near the year’s end). Once in seventh grade, for an in-class video project about the environment, me and some classmates dressed up in silly costumes and mimed to a heavy metal song. I essentially reused my Halloween costume from the previous year, when I went as Austin Powers. If that wasn’t bad enough, the frilly shirt was pink.

The History Channel is doing a special on the McRib. It is finally History! That sucks.

I guess that picture will have to remain a memory since it is no longer on my hard drive. Oh well.

Shit. I just found out that my girlfriend was one of the cool kids in high school and junior high. I was explaining how Matt took “Hat Day” to a creative extreme. She asked, “why would he do that?”

No music, just the pitter patter of sneakers are they dragged along the polished stage floor.

I love how my school considered hats a “distraction”. Are kids really going to not pay attention to the teacher because some asshole is wearing hat? Apparently the people at my school must have had the most extreme case of ADD in the history of man or else they were all cavemen who had seen the modern world for the first time. I never wore a hat so didn’t really give a shit….Matt I’m half-tempted to send you a video of my 7th grade English/Reading class’ Celebration of Me….it was essentially a talent show for our class (although there was an alternative project you could do which was displayed in the other room.) I dunno whats better….the totally typical “grunge” flannel get i was wearing, our “original” song which was totally a Smells Like Teen Spirit rip-off, my “drum set” which consisted of pieces and parts of someone else’s old set, or my terrible singing…man middle school was quite the awkward time for me.

Oh yeah….our school had spirit week and it went something like this: Hat Day, “twins” day (where you and a friend or friends dress the same. One year these two girls came in as siamese twins which got them in trouble for some reason… most likely being too much of a DISTRACTION!), pajama day, BLue and white day (shcool colors) and i can’t remember the fifth day but oh well.

I never participated in such, as I have stated many, many threads ago. But reading about the trauma others endured, I’m glad I had my school spirit surgically removed at a young age.

We were actually allowed to wear hats at my high school until midway through my freshman year when they were banned. I remember the excuse they gave us was “gang activity”, but I am still convinced that the teachers just saw them as disrespectful, wanted them gone, and spun it in a manner so they could blame it on us.

It didn’t really bother me all that much when they were banned however. I did typically wear a hat, but I never understood why we were allowed to wear them in the first place, so I always just assumed they would change the rule. I just enjoyed it while it lasted.

For my version of the hat day incident, we’ll need to replace all instances of “hat” with “drag” and “hat day” with “opposite day”.
I was seriously the only boy who participated, it was all my mom’s fault, honest. The worst part of the day was gym class when I had to take off my high heels and fun laps in my pantyhose. true story. Thanks Matt for continuing to post, I’ve been checkin in here for the past 5 years. Later.

Magic Toe reminded me of something. In middle school we couldn’t wear shoes by the BK or British Knight brand because they thought it was shoes people from gang members wore. They thought the initials stood for Blood Kill. We also couldn’t wear Dickies brand clothing because they thought gang members wore that too. Probably other bands too but I don’t remember.

A few years later after I was out of that school my cousin that went to that school’s classmate got suspended for bringing listerine to school. I guess the kid was obsessed with oral hygiene and just took mouthwash with him to school. The kid seemed decent, but why did they suspend him? Because Listerine has Alcohol in it. The parents tried to fight it I don’t remember what happened but it was on the news a few times. Public school pffftt

Oh Matt. I feel your pain. I probably would have been one of those dizzy kids on stage with you.

I had a similarly embrassing incident in 6th grade. Only mine involved “Pajama Day”, a set of bright blue Power Rangers pajamas, and my dearly beloved stuffed elephant. I wish not to speak any more of it.

I feel your pain. 5th-10th grade was absolutely horrific. Looking back I can see that I was a spaz, but I was going to school with some of the most magnificent bastards on the face of the planet. Heck, I even led the faculty to believe I was gonna be one of the next School Shooters in order to force people to shut up…

On a happier, and more hat-day-related note, I had the same sorta thing, but it only happened once, in 7th grade… I remember we had Hat day and Crazy Hair day. I wore this big felt cat-in-the-hat hat, and got it yanked down over my head by the teacher when I got a question wrong in Math class.

Picture it: Sacajawea Elementary School, 1988. Hat Day comes for all the little children. Most people wore sports or little league hats. Not me. I had neither. But I did have a hat that my grandma gave me when she was clearing out her garage: it was red and white, a ballcap style, and it had but one word on it: BAMA. Now come to find it out, it involved the state of Alabama, which is where my grandmother is from. But the other children did not know this. They just knew it to be a mystery message on a kid who never talked anyway, and who openly admitted that he didn’t know what his hat meant.

Luckily, people forgot about it quickly because I had the misfortune to get startled during a classroom showing of The Dark Crystal. I screamed in class, and it wasn’t a scary scene. That took some time to forget.

Happily, there is no photographic evidence - that I know of - of the time my school did “Tacky Day” as a spirit event (Junior High School, by the by). Just the week before we had done tie day, and my wacky, wide, noisy tie with a plastic state-of-California tie tack was the most conservative of the ties onstage. I appeared for Tacky Day in yellow-and-black checked pants (that were about three sizes too big for me), a loud hawaiian shirt, and had about three colors sprayed into my hair.

I was one of only four kids who participated, and I was WORLDS beyond the others for tacky - the other three had mostly depended on plaid shirts and striped jackets.

Wow….hearing this makes me feel better that we’re all here to share each other’s pain. I’ve had dozens of stories about school spirit weeks and days, but I really cannot remember them while reading all of yours. XD This is why I love this site to DEATH.
I loved my middle school years going into high school cuz I hung out in the weirdo crowd that was actually pretty large (I’d say 10 strong). Plus, since we partly controlled the anime card black market, no one messed with us, cuz we were the ones who controlled the lunch money circulation.
I’m wondering whether to go to any of my reunions, only that MySpace, as several of you have mentioned, has eliminated the need to rent a PI to get dirt. How stupid are you to put up a record of your sluttyness so that random homeless bums can surf the net and comment on your MySpace via free internet in college/library campuses (true story, there’s this creepy guy at SJSU who does that for hours on end).
1) Mystie and Brilliantpants:
XD I was sooooo into Sailor Moon. My middle school had a huge SM trading card racket. You could sell off cards and still haev enough to buy hot lunch and a couple more cards! Shit, those were the days.
2)Saint Stryfe: best indirect revenge EVER. Its Movie Perfect.

Aww…Kids can be such bastards. On the bright side, I bet none of them have a cool website with lots of fans that love your hat!

I know this is really late but I was out having serious fun all weekend so I bailed on the internet…”Oh, and for the record, I CANNOT believe no one has referred to the headgear in question as The Taj Ma-hat.” - Magic Toe

I feel the need to point out that I did in fact call it that in my post somewhere near the middle of the posts. Hats off to me for being creative! Taj Mahat!

This is late too but Im going to share my brief story. I was a freshman in high school and they had dress up for Halloween day. Which NO ONE participated in, something I didnt think of ahead of time. I wore some gothy looking clothes and did my makeup very pale and vampire=like. I was basically a vampire. People started to laugh at me cos i was real pale and wearing black and blood red lipstick and it was soooo embarrassing that I just claimed I didnt know that it was Halloween. That that was just how I dressed that day.
Which made them talk and gossip even more.
Add in some people rumoring around that I was a satanist after my getup on Halloween and add in the factor that I love heavy metal music (and was very into Megadeth, Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Dio, etc at the time) and bingo, I pretty much was labeled as a devil lover then on out. Which caused all sorts of problematic issues throughout my high school “career”. Such as being moved out of art class by the principal and into child development in some effort to “soften” me up. Despite the fact I loved art and they wouldnt let me take both because they were afraid that art would further “corrupt” me.
Stupid hicks in a small town.

We had hat day in highschool. Only a few people actually wore wacky hats and everyone else pretty much wore baseball hats. No prize was given or anything, it was just a gag the school did for spirit days. Which were the days the football team were to play, but no amount of spirit could help us, we always lost anyway. We had hat day, pj day, school color day… etc.

Yes, you did. Damn. Now I’ll never be sure if I actually thought of the term on my own, or if I had read what you wrote, didn’t recall it, and subconsciously broke out what you had said later.

I just have to say, I wore an ‘Orangemen’ sweatshirt I got from an overstock clothes store because I thought the mascot kicked ass too. So you’re not alone there. Lets just say I didn’t have a great Junior High experience as well.

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