The Exact Opposite of Okay(49)
Lol. You’re literally funnier than every guy on the basketball team combined.
That is best compliment I could hope to receive at this point. I was about to cave into temptation and check the online response to my nudes for the millionth time today, but this is enough to distract me for another minute or two.
Well, that isn’t hard. Unlike every guy on the basketball team, who are hard at all times. You know, due to raging hormones and constant exposure to each other’s penises.
He doesn’t reply to this for around half an hour, and I actually start to freak out that I’ve offended him.
I refresh my emails several times – still nothing from the competition judges. I just want to know if I’m on the shortlist, damn it! And if I do not receive word within the next forty-eight seconds I am at very real risk of causing a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster through sheer nervous energy alone.
But then Carson:
Hey, is your friend Ajita single? One of my firm-penised teammates wants to ask her out.
Oh, Ajita, you daaaaawwwwg. I mean, I’m not surprised she’s in demand because she’s a beautiful goddess and all-round hilarious human being, but still. Always nice to hear my homegirl getting the attention she deserves.
She is indeed single! However, I am not sure firm penises are her jam. I mean, neither are flaccid ones. Like, I just don’t think penises are her preferred genitalia. But your pal should ask away, for I am not her spokesperson!
I then ping off a text about this new development to the queen herself, and promptly fall asleep with the most absurd of smiles on my face, dreaming of pizza with Carson Manning in the not too distant future.
Monday 3 October
10.13 a.m.
Things that have happened since arriving at school this morning:
1. Danny ignored me in homeroom. Sigh. This animosity is highly inconvenient because I need him to fix my laptop for me. It just will not connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many sacrifices I make to the technology gods, including but not limited to my firstborn child.
2. Ajita is off sick. She has stomach flu from consuming week-old pepperoni pizza, even though she’s supposed to be vegetarian. I texted her to tell her that she is an extremely selfish and inconsiderate individual, but she just told me that she hopes I contract the norovirus in the next few hours so I can join her on the sofa for a Comedy Central binge. That doesn’t sound awful in all honesty.
3. All the usual jeers and whispers and general assholery. It is quite baffling to me that people are still interested in my nudes, because as a solid 6/10 I’m painfully middle of the road. This is why I have developed a sense of humor to compensate, so I’m totally okay with my ranking as “above average but only just”. However, I am totally not okay with the fifteen-year-old Japanese boy who follows me around everywhere asking me to sign the iPhone case he’s had made out of my leaked photo.
4. I flunked math. Shock of all shocks, quadratic equations and/or the ancient wanker that is Pythagoras are not top of my list of things I currently give a crap about.
5. Vaughan made a speech in the cafeteria in response to aforementioned jeers and whispers and general twattery. It went something like this: “Ahoy, gossiping fishwives! It is I, grandson of Benito Mussolini, evil dictator and abhorrent human being. I doth shall [again I’m not a hundred percent clued up on doth usage, but hopefully you’ll let it slide] make it abundantly clear that I did not have sexual intercourse with this here Izzy O’Neill.” I am paraphrasing slightly. The original was far less eloquent. Basically, he wanted everyone to know that despite all the evidence, he has zip zilch zero to do with my situ. And nothing screams “uninvolved bystander” like a public declaration of innocence.
6. I caved and checked the WCW website again. Nice new additions: a sweepstake in which voters guess my weight, bra size and body mass index based on the nude photo [these are weirdly accurate]; a strongly worded post about how decidedly unfunny I am [lol okay sure]; more amateur Photoshop jobs [in one, my face has been superimposed onto a porn screenshot in which the actress is receiving a penis in every orifice].
7. Bumped into Carlie in the restroom and almost as soon as she made accidental eye contact with me, she turned and speed-walked straight out of there. Thank you for the support, dude! I mean, I understand that as a new kid she probably doesn’t want to taint her reputation by associating with the likes of me, but still. If she and Ajita do end up going out, I don’t want things to be awkward between us.
Sigh. I might go and hang out with Mrs Crannon. She seems to be the last person at Edgewood who doesn’t despise every fibre of my being.
2.45 p.m.
Crannon is also off sick. Am slightly concerned about the fact this coincides with Ajita’s absence, and ordinarily I would cook up a delicious conspiracy theory about their passionate, clandestine love affair. But I’m just not in the mood.
Ho hum, woe is me, why must I go on? How can things possibly get any worse?
4.56 p.m.
Ha. Ha ha. HA.
Surely, Izzy, you have seen enough movies and read enough books to know that when the protagonist utters that doomed sentence, “How can things possibly get any worse?” things invariably get worse.
In my case, much fucking worse.
Someone sent a video of Vaughan’s cafeteria speech to a local newspaper reporter, who uploaded it to the publication’s website along with links to the gross, Izzy-shaming blog, and a full background as to the involvement of a Republican senator’s son in a small-town sex scandal. Ted Vaughan has been approached for comment.