Gordon Keith
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It's important to follow pre-pubescent trends
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, October 17, 2008
When I was in junior high, it was very important how you carried your books. In seventh grade, every hip student had to carry his books in an athletic bag. Not a backpack, not a messenger bag and, for the love of dead William Buckley, not a briefcase.
It was also tragically unhip to use one's locker, so everyone carried every book in an athletic bag. Mine weighed about as much as a Mini Cooper.
Then, overnight, every cool kid switched to NO BAG. Unfortunately, I was left off that Twitter feed. So I showed up to school one day, books bulging out of an athletic bag, and saw other kids walking around with books stacked under their arms. They looked silly with their arms bowed out in giant book-filled parentheses, but it was the new way. I quickly adapted by ditching my bag near the band hall and feigning innocence.
After NO BAG came THE BACKPACK, but you could only wear it – and this is important – over one shoulder. Two shoulders, and you were crossed off the lists for heaven and Sadie Hawkins.
Do you know what it meant if you wore your backpack over both shoulders? You were gay. Yep. That was the way you announced it in those days. No tearful confession to parents followed by nervous admissions to friends. All you did back then was wear a backpack over both shoulders. The no-locker rule was still in effect, so the 70 pounds of books would routinely snap a clavicle.
Then, one day I went to school and noticed that everyone was gay. Yes, they were all wearing their backpacks over both shoulders. I saw my opportunity to pounce, and began establishing my social dominance. "Ha, ha! You're totally gay, dude. And you, too! And you, too. And ..."
A quick survey revealed everyone two-shouldering it. Suddenly, I had that startling, heart-pounding epiphany we all have at some point: "One shoulder is now gay."
And so it goes.
I am sure it is still like that. The shifting sands of adolescent coolness are a weak foundation on which to build your self-image. But really, what choice do we have?
Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Catch him on TV on The Gordon Keith Show, Thursday nights at 12:35 a.m. on Channel 8. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith. com.
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