High schools are a perfect breeding ground for weirdness. First of all, you have a bunch of teenagers who are starting to deal with adult problems but they don’t have the experience or the brain development to figure out how to navigate complex feelings and relationships.
Then you add sex, drugs, learner’s permits, the stress of trying to get into college and really bad facial hair to the situation and you have all the ingredients for people and situations to go completely sideways.
Then there are the teachers. High school teachers tend to be a bit more eccentric than those in the younger grades because they are hired as specialists in a given field, such as history, math or science. Whereas teachers in younger grades have to be nurturing and have a more holistic approach to child development.
Also, hindsight makes a lot of things that seemed normal at the time begin to seem a bit strange. As we get older and have a firm grasp on the realities of being an adult, there are some things that we can’t believe we lived through as teenagers in high school.
When I was in high school we had a drama teacher that sat in the gym and chain-smoked while we rehearsed the play and we didn’t think anything of it. I’m pretty sure my home economics teacher hit the cooking sherry during lunchtime, and we got a day off from school due to the L.A. riots in 1992.
Everyone dealt with some amount of weirdness while they were in high school, so Jimmy Fallon asked his “Tonight Show” audience to share their stories with #MyHighSchoolWasWeird and he read some of his favorites on his show.
We took a look at the hashtag and picked some of the responses we liked the most. Here are 19 of them. Why was your high school weird? Tell us in the comments on Facebook.
Itu2019su00a0Hashtagsu00a0time! Tell us something weird or funny about your high school, and tag it with #MyHighSchoolWasWeird. Could be on the show!— jimmy fallon (@jimmy fallon)
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My chemistry teacher would give us an example a day of how to kill your mother in law with chemical compositions #MyHighSchoolWasWeird— Liisa Spink (@Liisa Spink)
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We had a kid nicknamed Johnny Appleseed ( JohnA for short) who placed marijuana seeds in any available place they could grow. Our school had pot plants popping up so often they had to get rid of all the potted plants in classrooms and offices . #MyHighSchoolWasWeird— OldHippie (@OldHippie)
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#MyHighSchoolWasWeirdnOne teacheru2019s bathroom pass was an actual toilet seat that you had to carry with you to the restroom. pic.twitter.com/tesVLEpKe9— Robin Smith (@Robin Smith)
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My high school was across the street from a another high school #MyHighSchoolWasWeirdpic.twitter.com/iPXC7SQx7b— Timmy Stotlar (@Timmy Stotlar)
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This is the mascot at the high school i went to. nPart anthropomorphic sugar beet part food processing machinery. nn#MyHighSchoolWasWeirdpic.twitter.com/2R42p5zCYu— omicrust prime (@omicrust prime)
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#MyHighSchoolWasWeird because we had free periods during the day where we would sleep or hang out in the halls.pic.twitter.com/UCYxZPz4Dv— nikkiu2728 (@nikkiu2728)
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#MyHighSchoolWasWeird because Grimace won every student vote by a landslide. If you werenu2019t writing in Grimace on your ballots you were a narc. Youu2019d think Mayor McCheese would make more sense, being an actual politician, but I guess enough kids couldnu2019t spell it or something.pic.twitter.com/N6CrLw4v7r— Mike-o Neill (@Mike-o Neill)
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The mascot was a literal mop #MyHighSchoolWasWeirdpic.twitter.com/ypvheLGnZ2— Courtney (@Courtney)
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One time a swim meet was canceled at my friend’s high school because the pool “caught on fire.” Still have no idea how that’s possible. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 24, 2022
10.
My high school had the mayonnaise bandit who would put mayo on the under side of the stair railings from the cafeteria making them useless or risk getting a handful of slimy mayonnaise on your way to class #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Rachel Lambert (@rlambert1201) January 24, 2022
11.
My high School was called Start. The student motto for it was Start High Stay High#MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Kelly Reads (@ReaderofBook) January 24, 2022
12.
I graduated from North Pole High School in Alaska. We had to answer letters to Santa for an English grade. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Nancy J. (@LifeboatSinger) January 24, 2022
13.
My Junior year of high school there was a competition for one of the teachers to kiss a cow. Of course the most disliked teacher ended up kissing the cow. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Edward Schmidt II (@edwardschmidtii) January 24, 2022
14.
There was this kid that would run around during highschool and hiss at people. He was really smart but he would just randomly hiss lol #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— The Zelda Corner (@ZeldaCorner) January 24, 2022
15.
Got a new principal in my senior year who decided to enforce the dress code with bright orange “Dress Code Violator” t-shirts. They became badges of honor instead of the intended punishment… 🤦♀️ #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Kelsey K 켈시 (@krklemm) January 24, 2022
16.
Our cafeteria’s chicken fries were such a rare and glorious experience, once people GRADUATED, they would still come back to buy them. #myhighschoolwasweird
— EmmyAnn (@EmmyAnn412) January 24, 2022
17.
#MyHighSchoolWasWeird because we had a bring your tractor to school day, those who brought one in got to skip all classes and just talk with others about their tractors. It always causes traffic delays because there was one main road into the school.
— Mary Olmsted (@MaryOlmsted13) January 25, 2022
18.
My science teacher was convicted of a double murder during summer break. I wish I was kidding!
— Mike Bennett (@MikeBennett11) January 24, 2022
19.
Weird Al graduated from my high school. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Suge Knight also graduated from my high school. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
— Cindy Price (@Cinderella1976) January 24, 2022
If you look back at how you acted, dressed and behaved in high school and have a little bit of shame, that’s probably a good thing. If you cringe a little when you think about your former self, that shows that you’ve grown as a person.
But wouldn’t it be great if you could go back to high school knowing what you know now? How much easier would it be to approach that special person you wanted to ask to the dance but couldn’t muster up the courage? How much more would you appreciate those carefree days when all you had to worry about was a bio test or who had a crush on whom in homeroom?
Personally, if I went back to high school I’d have a lot more appreciation for my teachers knowing just how hard of a job they have. Now that I’m an adult I have a lot more sympathy for what we put them through and I can totally understand why teaching at a high school can turn someone a little weird.
Here’s Jimmy Fallon reading off some of his responses to #MyHighSchoolWasWeird.
This article originally appeared on 02.09.22