The King of Socials 8

It’s an understatement to say that today’s society is quick to judge. I include myself  in this pool of judgers—not proudly, but I do. There is in fact a psychological explanation for the prominence of superficiality in our population. Our brains are wired to spot the   oddballs of the herd and filter them out. I can’t say exactly why this is, and I can’t even say I really want to. What I do know is that this type of quick judgment is often wrong, especially when it involves people. I realize that this statement isn’t groundbreaking by any means. In fact, the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” idea is one big, overused cliché. However, I still feel the need to re-iterate it. This need crops up most strongly when I think about my friend, Adam.

Adam and I first met in high school in my hometown of Vernon, B.C. We were in a grade 8 social studies class together. Our teacher was Mr. Fraser, a man with sparse but unruly gray hair and a British accent that made him very popular among the relatively uncultured students of small-town Vernon. For whatever reason, people like British accents. Again, I include myself in this group.

Midway through the term, Mr. Fraser assigned a research project on the Black Death—the terrible plague that swept through Europe in the fourteenth century. We were to research the plague and present our research in any format we saw fit. Popular choices for projects included journals entries, skits, posters, and comics. I, being my overachieving self, decided to go all-out in both style and content.

I bought two huge pieces of poster-board and taped them together neatly in the middle. I folded the outer portions of each sheet inwards so that I effectively had a set of double doors that you could open to see my project. I painted the doors black. I was obviously a very clever eighth grader to use black doors to symbolize the black plague. I thought I was being very deep. I also glue-gunned real doorknobs on the front so that my project would look as appealing and professional as possible. When you opened the doors, my wealth of knowledge about the Black Death poured forth in a way that I thought screamed “A+!” Upon its completion, I thought my project was—and this was a very cool way to put it—“the bomb.”

But as impressive as I thought my Socials 8 research project was, it was nothing compared to Adam’s. I couldn’t have competed if I tried. (And I did try). If our projects were movies, Adam’s was an original art film, generating Oscar buzz among top critics of the industry. Mine went straight to DVD.

Adam presented his project in three parts. Part one was a cake he made from scratch. Part two was an interpretive dance. Part three was, in fact, a movie—acted, directed, filmed, and produced by Adam himself.

The cake was the first part of Adam’s masterpiece that I saw on the day our projects were due. Adam breezed into class a few minutes late, seeming calm and composed, carrying a white bag with grey lettering.

I did a double take. I had seen that bag before. It couldn’t be! Oh, but it was. I, and probably ninety percent of the girls in that class, had received a bag just like that after purchasing our first bras. It was a La Senza bag. La Senza is of course a ladies lingerie shop, and on top of that, it is one of the only lingerie shops in all of Vernon. I wondered what  Adam was carrying in that bag, and how on earth he had the guts, or simply the naivety, to bring whatever it was to high school in that bag—an underwear bag. I started to get nervous just thinking about the comments he would face after this display. Simply put, eighth grade boys do not bring bags that once carried newly purchased women’s underwear to school. What was he thinking? What would happen next?! I sat nervously at my desk, trying to avoid directly looking at the bag.

As I fretted over the situation of the underwear bag, Adam casually set it down and announced to the class that his project must be formally presented to us all. Formally presented? Could this get any worse? Does this kid realize what he is doing?

Seemingly amused, and likely intrigued by Adam’s mystery-special-surprise- underwear bag, Mr. Fraser obliged.

“I’d like to start with the cake,” declared Adam. Confused (but also hungry) teens exchanged looks around the room. Bringing a cake was definitely a good start if Adam planned on recovering from the mistake of the underwear bag. I began to feel hope for him. However, next thing I knew, Adam was reaching into his bag. From it, he produced a cake.

‘This is a cake I baked from scratch,” continued Adam. “I apologize for it’s slightly messy appearance. It’s hot outside, and I should have known that the piped butter cream wouldn’t hold up in the heat.”

If he hadn’t before, Adam had the room’s full attention. “Unlike the times of the horrible and tragic black plague, we are fortunate enough to have an abundance of food. This is why I have baked this cake for you all. It is a celebration of escaping troubled times like the ones we studied. Please feel free to have a piece at the end of my presentation!”

Adam then went on to describe the cake in full. I wasn’t a Food Network addict back then, and had a bit of trouble following his detailed account. But it didn’t matter. No matter how delicious and complicated the cake sounded, I did not want anything to do with spoils from the underwear bag. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake not to try that cake. I have since learned that Adam is an amazing baker. He once made a Croque en Bouche (a fancy tower of cream puffs) all on his own for a party. To put it in perspective, Croque en Bouche is probably even harder to make than it is to pronounce correctly if your French is as poor as mine.

For part two of his project, Adam hooked up some cables and cords to the TV at the front of the room. He said he had a video presentation for us. He pressed play.

The next few minutes were…interesting. In his video, Adam acted out a range of characters, each of which had experienced various degrees of trauma as a result of the plague. For me, Adam’s most memorable personification was that of a woman in a frilly pink dress. This particular look was complete with black pumps and a platinum blond wig. I’ll admit I was a slightly sheltered child, and so I had never seen anyone put on this kind of display before. I couldn’t decide whether I found Adam’s portrayal funny, horrifying, charming, shocking, or just plain weird. I looked around the room, trying to gauge the reactions of the other students. Some laughed, some stared wide-eyed, and others like me looked around shiftily and tried to deduce the appropriate reaction. I continued to feel uneasy until the video ended. Tentative applause rippled through the room.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, with the help of my back-up dancers, I present the finale.”

It was time for part three.  Several girls got up from various positions around the room to stand in a line behind Adam. Adam struck a dramatic pose, commanding immediate attention.

All of a sudden, Adam broke his pose and burst into song. The girls behind him began ooh-la-la-ing, but none could detract from the star himself.

“The Black Death was a time of striiiifffffeee!” Adam’s colorful vocals were accompanied by flamboyant yet graceful dance moves.

“The Black Death took thousands of lliiiiiiivvveeess!”

The vocals were questionable, but it was clear Adam had been formally trained in dance—and well. Extended limbs and pointed toes fluttered their way across the front of the classroom, all whilst Adam sang about European hardships. Both my mouth and eyes remained wide open for the duration of his dance. If you’ve ever been fishing, I looked like one of the trout after you bonk it on the head—eyes buggy, mouth gaping.

When the song came to its conclusion, one of Adam’s chorus girls reached behind her back and brought out a plastic silver tiara. Adam took the tiara from her, and placed the crown on his head, declaring he was the “King of Socials 8.” The chorus girls responded by repeating the line “he’s the King of Socials 8” in out-of-tune harmony several times. Adam waved his hand for the girls to stop singing. He took a bow.

For a moment, the class was silent. But soon I, and the rest of my classmates, found we could no longer hold ourselves back. Applause filled the room. Some people stood. This was clearly the most original and entertaining piece of scholastic work any of us had been witness to.

Adam smiled brightly, the kind of smile that only made everyone cheer louder. He was basking in all his “King of Socials 8” glory. It was kind of amazing. It felt like a movie.

I looked over at Mr. Fraser, who sat at his desk with an unreadable expression on his face. As the applause began to subside, he cleared his throat aggressively, as if to announce he was still the man in charge. A British monarch. I saw Adam look, perhaps nervously, in his teacher’s direction. What would a nearly retired English man think of Adam’s very avant-garde assignment/dance performance/baking exhibition/feature film?

Mr. Fraser cleared his throat again.

"A+."

I couldn’t have agreed more.

Mica Lemiski is a third year student at Western University.