An eagle-eyed substitute teacher spotted the work of this precocious young propagandist-to-be at a Pennsylvania high school. (Psst! Philip Morris? R.J. Reynolds? Are you paying attention?)
related: 2good 2b 4gotten
Way to use those SAT vocab words!!!
February 1st, 2010 · 105 comments
FILED UNDER: excessive underlining · exclamation-point happy! · high school · not-so-veiled threats · now that's not true
105 responses so far ↓
#1
Dara
Sounds like my life!!!
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:38 pm rating: +6
#2
MrCreepy
You know, I bought the damn thing, and I still feel unfulfilled. Did I do something wrong?
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:39 pm rating: +10
#3
anglophile
Seems a little too suspiciously enthusiastic to be a yearbook editor. I bet they worked out a partnership with the FBLA to provide marketing.
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:40 pm rating: +8
#4
shesajem
$47?? Now that’s an expensive yearbook.. I bet they are making a tidy profit off of that!!
what is maelstrom?
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:42 pm rating: 0
#5
Rossy
If you don’t get one, where else are you going to make notes about who’s a douche, who’s totally hot, and who’s your BFF?!
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:44 pm rating: +5
#6
Wordtinker doesnt smith
It’s been almost twenty years – they still haven’t delivered mine. Would it be extremely unkind to accuse them of being dilatory?
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:45 pm rating: +6
#7
jetjackson
I think they need to spruik other angles;
Cheerleaders!!! Savour the good years with a yearbook. When your looks are gone in 15 years you will need proof that you were once hot to trot… This is your proof!!! In full colour!
Players get a photo list of all the girls you went to high school with so you can remember their surnames in 10 years time, look them up on facebook, see who ‘got hot’ and suggest that you ‘catch up for drinks’!!!!
Future serial killers!!! With this year book you won’t forget anyone who made your highschool life a living hell when you finally reach tipping point. Cross them off as you go!!!!
Only $47!!!!!
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:03 pm rating: +67
#8
Critical Grass
Does the yearbook come with whatever it is that you smoke when you wrote that note?
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:04 pm rating: +11
#9
Betch
How is not buying a yearbook “normal”? At my school, the vast majority of students bought yearbooks, making it extremely abnormal to miss out.
Regardless, this kid is a winner for using maelstrom in a hilariously correct context AND for spelling it correctly. I only wish my high school had as amazing fliers as this; the only ones we had that are even worth recalling are the fliers of our vice principal’s head photoshopped onto a witch working a butter churn, after the infamous butter churning incident at our footbal pep rally. Good times.
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:06 pm rating: +4
#10
park rose
A maelstrom of unfulfilling normalcy would surely be inertia or some form of entropy in- action? I mean, that goes beyond Coolidge-isms, doesn’t it? Rumoured to be one of the laziest Presidents in history – or was that Wilson?
I really don’t know that much about entropy, so I guess that oi, mark and t can help me out. Just going along with this:
So, if my unfufillment is increased, the maelstrom surely decreases? Or they become the same thing, because unfulfilled normalcy is possibly excitement? And I wouldn’t have minded having an exciting high school career. All these eddies in my mind.
*Edit. Oh, I see. It’s boring and normal to buy a yearbook, so don’t disrupt the status quo? Status quo is good for your high school career. This is how conservatives are made. However, you might not even get around to purchasing a year book if the ennui is crushing you like a weight.
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:10 pm rating: +6
#11
tzed
With a price that low it must be a Chinese bootleg.
Said the owner of a crappy bootleg Beatles Stereo Box Set
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:11 pm rating: +1
#12
park rose
A maelstrom of fulfilled normalcy – George Bush? Or didn’t he even get that far?
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:12 pm rating: +7
#13
infant tyrone
My, but that whippersnapper does exclaim more than a trifle !
Of course, today’s post-embryonic cadres and cohorts have good
reason to drill multi-component phrases like ‘inexorable paroxysm”.
We geezers didn’t have an SAT essay module to survive, and don’t
think that we don’t appreciate what a Hobson’s Choice we glissaded past when we were too debilitated to attend the Halloween party where
Homer the class clown and poet brought Scylla and Charybdis cupcakes.
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:16 pm rating: +2
#14
Sparkles23
If I buy them *in* lunch, won’t the sloppy joes make my pages stick together?
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:36 pm rating: +3
#15
TippingCows
Bravo (or brava) to the note writer; and maelstrom is one of my favorite words. Something aesthetic about the a before the e – makes me want to go WHEEE!!!
(I never bought my high school yearbook – what does that mean exactly)?
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:39 pm rating: +4
#16
G
Hrm. I never bought a yearbook, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of “normalcy” [sic] about my life, high school or otherwise–however much I might wish it. False advertising!
~ ~ ~
I remember my high school only ordered enough yearbooks to fulfill their pre-orders. They didn’t have any left over to try to sell once they came in. Maybe things have changed since the Middle Ages.
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:56 pm rating: +1
#17
chelsea
did you mean J.R. Reynolds Masterman? coz i will seriously shit my pants if you reff’ed my highschool. WILL ACTUALLY DO IT.
Feb 1, 2010 at 11:11 pm rating: +2
#18
Havingfitz
If my high school had wanted me to shell out money for a senior year-book, they shouldn’t have screwed up and listed me as a Sophomore in it. I graduated in 1994; someday, the bitterness will fade. Someday…
Feb 1, 2010 at 11:23 pm rating: +2
#19
AuntyBron
High school isn’t a career, it’s a prison sentence. One which, unlike our justice system, does not let even a model prisoner get time off for good behavior.
Not that I’m bitter or anything
Feb 1, 2010 at 11:52 pm rating: +5
#20
Ethnic Avenue
This kid has an interesting hypothesis.
I bought my yearbook and lost it shortly after graduation. And my life since has been “a maelstrom of unfulfilling normalcy.”
Feb 2, 2010 at 1:24 am rating: +2
#21
Jonathan
Gosh. This one sent me back a few.
It makes me think my high school career wouldn’t have been such a maelstrom of unfulfilled normalcy had I more school spirit… under the bleachers during classes, that is.
Feb 2, 2010 at 2:27 am rating: +2
#22
Carolyn
I’ve had all four of my year books for fifteen years and I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of them!
Feb 2, 2010 at 6:17 am rating: 0
#23
fanning flashes
Vocabulary Class – !
Drama Class – !!
Punctuation Class – ?
Feb 2, 2010 at 7:27 am rating: +4
#24
Joe
Who the hell makes a “career” out of high school? I guess they’re targeting the poor saps who will be around to buy 6 or more yearbooks?
Feb 2, 2010 at 8:28 am rating: +3
#25
Pterosaur
Ah, Yearbook Club, you snarky, snarky bastards.
At my school, Yearbook Club was full of ironic, smartass bookworms. I can see them posting this note. The faculty would never get that the kids are mocking the institution of high school. Hell, only the senior English teacher even knows what a maelstrom is. And he’s too busy snickering at the joke, because he used to be a smartass bookworm, too.
Team Maelstrom!
Feb 2, 2010 at 9:32 am rating: +2
#26
Woman on the Verge
Paper from the copy room: free
Color ink from computer lab: free
Making students who can’t afford an overpriced yearbook feel like shit: priceless
Feb 2, 2010 at 9:50 am rating: +3
#27
Escape Goat
So … that’s what happened to me.
Feb 2, 2010 at 10:01 am rating: +1
#28
GhostWriter
I don’t need a yearbook; I have a Three Wolf Moon T-shirt.
Feb 2, 2010 at 1:30 pm rating: +3
#29
Gandalf
“A maelstrom of unfulfilled normalcy ”
You mean like real life? A life of quiet desperation?
Poor High Schoolers! Soon enough they will learn that life is an ever swirling, sucking eddy of despair, in an ever darkening Universe.
Feb 2, 2010 at 2:05 pm rating: +4
#30
Duncan
Surely this isn’t (as you said) an ad for a HIGH SCHOOL year book. If it were, then the threat would presumably be implying some form of backwards causation (you high school career henceforth will have been a maelstrom of normalcy). It seems far more likely that this is an ad for a grad school yearbook.
Feb 2, 2010 at 6:56 pm rating: 0
#31
Mozart
No self-respecting high school journalist would write an ad with those sentence fragments and excessive exclamation marks.
Feb 2, 2010 at 9:16 pm rating: 0
#32
Kate
One of my students (high school) went on a tirade:
“She’s being unfair! And stupid! And — and OAFISH!”
I wept a tear of vocabulary-retention joy!
Feb 2, 2010 at 10:10 pm rating: 0
#33
Alex
PLEASE TELL ME THIS WAS NORTH PENN HIGH SCHOOL!!!
I’m 99.8% sure it was.
Feb 4, 2010 at 12:22 am rating: 0
#34
Cal
Wouldn’t buying the yearbook count as fulfilling normalcy? I mean, everyone buys one, so if you wanted to be abnormal, don’t buy one.
Feb 9, 2010 at 12:45 pm rating: +1
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