The Viewmont House

             
           Mayor Ansen Call of Bountiful's previous home, also known as The Viewmont House, has been a Viking legacy ever since it burned down/became a meth house/insane asylum/Ted Bundy's hideaway/polygamist ninja ring's sanctuary. Basically, it's a really old house that's laced in mystery and probably a fair amount of marijuana.

              A few weeks before the start of Senior Year, The Princess and I decided to check out this house. Ahem, "allegedly" check out this abandoned house, since that would be trespassing, which is frowned upon in society. Allegedly, The Viewmont House is awesome. From the moment we crawled in through the hole in the wall, I knew it would be amazing. After the twenty minutes it took me to get The Princess to come inside, I started exploring. It was so insanely cool. There's old graffiti, beer bottles, mice, spiders, basically everything for a perfect evening. The Princess wouldn't know, because she was standing by the door screaming about how we were going to get raped in the ABANDONED house. To her, every light was a cop car, and every sound was a rapist who'd apparently lived his life lurking inside this desolate house, waiting for two relatively attractive teenage girls to stumble into his clutches.

               The upstairs is a disheveled mess of sunken in plywood and broken glass. I was walking on rafters and crap, and meanwhile, The Princess is still crouched by the hole we came in, swearing up a storm. I have never heard that kind of language out of her before. "We've got to get the h*** out of here!" "Holy s***! What was that!?" "Get back here, you're gonna f***ing die!" "We're gonna get raped!" "Oh my gosh, is that a cop car?? Look at those lights!" Hilariously entertaining watching her freak out as I'm standing above her, sprinkling dust onto her head.

              With her nearly going into hysterics, it cut the trip shorter than I had hoped, but it was still super cool, and I'm glad we went. As soon as we were safe outside, The Princess started shrieking about how fun it was and how we need to go back. Really, girl? You just wet your pants, and now you want to go back?? Whatever. Now I've just got to go to the Catacombs (I got to go to the Cloud while filming the Harvest horror movie, Mr. Creepstone), and then I will be satisfied with my Viewmont urban legends stint.

~The Basket Case

Picture Day

Picture Day

Oh god, my hair looks awful.

I don’t think anyone ever looks good.

Hair pulled back, sweatshirt, no makeup.

Eww, I have crazy eyes.

Look at my smile.

Yuck.

I look like a boy.

Eighth grade was the worst.

I took a picture.

Look at me.

No, you can’t see it.

I think I sneezed.

My hair looks good, but my face looks bad.

Braces.

Glasses.

This is what people remember.

Picture Day is the worst.

~The Basket Case

How to Drive a Guy Away

If you have ever been to high school, you would know that in all reality, it’s just one big game. There are some students who may care about their education and avidly participate in extra curricular, but one should not be too quick to assume that this is what all high school students are after. School, for most teens, is simply about one thing and one thing only: relationships. Some teenagers are better at this game than others. In fact, a large percentage of our student body could probably go professional with their witty pick up lines and subtle winks and smirks. I, on the other hand, know all the ins and outs of being an utter and complete failure in mastering these skills. Thinking about it, who really needs to spend time making themselves up just to impress a boy? If you want to live the life of a proud and single lady, you must follow these steps so that you too can be a benchwarmer of this “High School Game”.

Step One: Find the Guy

            In the realm of mortal men, only a select few can help you to be successful in the task of driving a guy away. You must choose carefully because if you end up with the guy that’s right for you, you’re going to end up having to change the lovely Facebook status, possibly for good. Being picky is key. Don’t fall for the sweet-talkers and the “boy next door” kind of people. In order to achieve your goal, you must set your standards high. So high, in fact, that it is almost inexcusable to not have selected the captain of the hockey team. Once you have undoubtedly overestimated your skills, it’s time for the real work to begin.

Step Two: The First Talk

            Get real, we live in the 21^st century: a world thriving off of technologies and screen-to-screen communication. Though you may believe that talking in person is the first step, texting is the actual route all girls should be aiming for. Try your hardest to have him ask for your number. If he does, yay for you! When he doesn’t, however, you’ve probably already made it obvious that you want to hook up with him so you might as well just ask for his. To maintain all possible cool, when you inquire him for his digits, don’t just shyly ask: tell! Demand that he spill the beans and eventually, you’ll win him over.

Step Three: Start Out Slow

            Start by asking him tons of questions. Do this simply as a safety precaution because no one should ever get into a relationship with a stranger! You must know everything.  Find out the food he likes, his favorite actors, and most importantly, his mom’s name. Remember that there is still the slight probability that the two of you could get married, and how embarrassing would it be if you had to ask your mother-in-law her name? You should always be on top of these kind of things.

Step Four: Taking Turns

            Never let him start a conversation. Some may say that you need to take turns with who texts, calls, or talks who, but keep your end goal in mind! Texting him first lets him know that you are still interested. Make sure you adorn your starting texts with lots of smiley faces as well. You want him to think that you are always happy to talk to him! Note: lots of smiley faces.

Step Five: Be Patient: Wait For Him To Make the Move

            By the second day of your engagement, if he hasn’t already asked you out, he is obviously the quiet type and is waiting for you to ask him. At first, you should start by bringing up ideas you think are fun for couples to do. If this freaks him out, don’t panic. It’s probably just because he wasn’t expecting you to be able to read his mind so well. Tell him that you really like food and see where the conversation goes. If it still doesn’t end with a date, continue bringing up the topic until some sign of life comes from his end. When that happens, again, don’t ask. Tell him that the two of you are going out to lunch. Eventually, he should comply.

Step Six: Don’t Be Nervous, Just Be Yourself

            When the two of you go out on your date, make sure you remain silent. Don’t answer his questions with complete sentences like you usually would. You must keep him guessing. After following the first five steps, he probably thinks you are pretty out there. Being quiet will confuse him and bring the perfect atmosphere for growth. You’re probably going to be very nervous during this endeavor so don’t flip out. Just because no one in the whole world gets nervous on their first date like you do doesn’t mean you can’t handle it! Just stay quiet and everything will be fine.

Step Seven: Make Friends With His Friends

            Just from observation, it’s obvious that guys don’t like it when girls invade their personal space. Give him room so that you can nurture the mutual respect you have for each other. Don’t mention his friends ever. In fact, if you want, you can playfully make fun of the fact that he has no friends. If he asks you if you want to meet them, turn away! Assume that he’s thinking you’re too good for him, and he’s trying to set you up with someone new. Put your foot down and draw the line! Let him know that you’re still independent and he should be too, in the kindest and gentlest way. You have to want him.

Step Eight: Become Close

            By this point, you should know everything about your man. If you haven’t already, stalk him on Facebook, Twitter, Insta, or whatever social media site he may have. If he has more than one, make a day out of rummaging through his past posts and pictures. Clean up your web page as well. Post lots of pictures of you with other guys to make it seem like if things don’t work out, you have other places to turn to. Jealousy always leads to greater unity.

Step Nine: Make it Official

Don’t tell your friends about anything that has been going on up to this point. If you do, he might begin to think that you’re trying to show him off. Guys don’t like girls who treat them like trophies, so keep him a secret! He’ll appreciate it. If he asks to seal the deal, be apprehensive at first. Again, try to keep him guessing to keep him interested. When he doesn’t, change your relationship status anyway. It’ll be like a happy surprise to him that you want to further your relationship.

Step Ten: Happily Ever After

            By now, your boy should be sprinting in the other direction. Congratulations! You’ve mastered these vital skills and can now continue life forever alone in peace! If, however, the man hasn’t left you at this point, refer to step one. You have obviously found the right guy.  

-The Princess

Senior Pranks

            It’s getting to be the end of the school year, and we’re all waiting, wondering what this year’s crop of seniors will come up with as their final hurrah. Will they be a year that goes down in school history, or will they be just another nameless year forgotten?

            There have been many senior pranks that are remembered at our school, but they are all quite infamous. None of them have ever been great, just failures of great proportion. Last year the seniors put forth one of the lamest efforts that I have ever heard of. Their “prank” was to play some ear splitting music for a brief five seconds over the intercom, then drop bouncy balls over the ledge in our commons area. Um, what was the point of that? Besides a few sophomores getting mad that they got beaned in the head, it was quite a disappointment.

            However, because everything must have an opposite in our universe, to balance out the underachieving seniors from last year, we also had the people who went way overboard. Some seniors a few years ago forced a cow to walk upstairs, and, of course, it couldn’t come back downstairs. The administration had to shoot it. Maybe that’s why our older siblings said the mystery meat at the cafeteria tasted like beef for a few weeks?

The Princess and I have always had dreams that our senior prank will be the best one the school has ever seen. Unfortunately, our year won’t come till next, but in the mean time, we can still plan out our epic senior prank. We will become Prank Sinatra’s.

Let’s just hope we’re not like the kids that got caught red-handed. I’d like to give a shout out to them for finding out that the school has an alarm system that activates at 9:30 pm. You took a bullet for the rest of us. Bravo.

Here’s some of our ideas. They’re a little small scale, because we’d like to keep it legal. Even though Graduation is about four hours long, hot, and the room smells like sweat and the realization that we all don’t know what the heck we’re going to do with our lives and now have to pay for college, it’s still a rite of passage. We want to walk with our class, and besides, I’m allergic to illegal pranks, I break out in handcuffs.

Foam the Field: The beauty in this prank is the simplicity. It’s cost effective for high school kids, yet is still immensely awesome. All you do is spread dishwasher detergent all over the field and turn on the sprinklers. Then, let the foam begin. Plus, can you say best celebration ever? Bring beach balls, music, and food. You’ve got yourselves a prank and party in one.

Senior Moment: It’s really criminal to not do this if you know a lot of elderly people or are the grandchild of hundreds. (I don’t know what kind of polygamy is going on in your family if you have hundreds of grandparents, but we’re not here to judge. If you’ve got old connections, use them.) In order to make this come to pass you’d need at least fifty senior citizens.  Get all the senior’s grandparents together for a great hoax. Have them show up to classes when all the seniors ditch. Senior day now has a whole new meaning in everyone’s mind.

Mariachi Monday: The plan is to hire a mariachi band as stalkers for a day. Get them to follow around an administrator. This just sounds awesome. However, it only works if your principal ever shows his face out of his office lair. Ours occasionally walks around the school, but we’re still not really sure he exists. We might change this out to one of our teachers. If you have the goal of bugging the living crap out of someone: check.

These are our top three right now. They’re fun, fairly easy, and quite hilarious. Who knows, maybe this year’s batch of seniors will flake out and be the year that just does a subpar flash mob or reorganizes a classroom or two. Maybe they’ll be the insane kids that set fire to the gym. Either way, we’ll be sure to tell you what went down, and next year when The Morning Meal Club pulls off the best senior prank ever, you guys will be the first to hear.

~The Basket Case

The Morning Meal Club

Any words come to mind when you hear the phrase, "high school"?
FUN                                                    PARTY 
                          YOUNG LOVE                   maybe YOLO?

 As seen in top-of-the-notch, non-fictional films such as High School Musical and Grease, you can concur that, in fact, that is true. We often break into perfect harmonies simultaneously in the most uneventful parts of the day, and the hardest thing you'll ever have to experience is only that on-set of 24 hours where your inhumanly large doubts  force you to believe that, that hunk-of-a-piece-of-man-candy likes the girl who is only 2.5% less ugly than you are. However, putting aside the fact that 15-18 years olds actually show the appearance of your typical 40 year-old man...high school pretty much sucks. Surprised? Don't worry. Feel free to go grab a shot of orange juice to let this really sink in. 'Cause it's true. For us (The Morning Meal Club), we've really struggled with this. Gabriella Montez has failed me completely. You actually have homework and studying before you can become the most successful chemist in the entire universe. So much of it actually, that no one even knows you exist. Was anyone else blind-sided by this? Because, like, I'm still suffering from the aftermath. I bet you also didn't know that painting trees doesn't actually give you detention credit and drag-racing will land you a nice, solid seat in jail. Seriously, take it from someone with first-hand experience. Society never prepared me for this. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK. Still don't believe it? Why don't you try skipping basketball practice to try out for your school musical? Yeah. That's right. Don't come crying to us from your disabilities rehab center when your legs fall off from those 169 ladder-sprints. What a b-slap of reality that'll be...BUT DON'T LOSE HOPE! Even if your summer job search did not land you at a ridiculously expensive country club, you can have new high school dreams to aspire to...may I refer you to our most favored, iconic movie: The Breakfast Club. That'll make you say good-morning to reality...'cause if you say anything else, there's a 99.679% chance you will be cussed-out. It's the perfect blend of people, drama, punishment, and as said by the man Andrew Clark, "You ask me one more question and I'm beating the s--- out of you." ...Sound familiar yet? Let this be your refreshing drink of cooled water. I bet you're saying to yourself, "Now this makes sense!" I couldn't have put it better myself. Welcome to high school!  Now you can feel prepared! And here, we will post all of our advice and experiences for moral support. Feeling disoriented? Feeling like your cheeks are being duct-taped together? Well here's one more token of truth from the one and only John Bender to consider before you get up for school again on that lovely Monday morning.

"Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place."

It isn't great. It's actually awful. It's almost like having Carly Rae Jepsen rock you to sleep on a bed of fiery  nails while One Direction eats away at your eyebrows. But it works. Between times of severe awkward and heartache and just plain frustration, you can find a bit of funny and maybe even make it out alive...maybe.

-The Princess