My senior year in high school I was on the ballot for Homecoming Queen. To this day I am not sure if someone put my name on there as joke because they* didn't like me, or as an honor because they did. High school being what it is, at the time I assumed a joke, and it wasn't until decades later that I ever even entertained the idea that it might have been a compliment.
When the ballots came out a friend told me I was on it, told me they were so surprised I was running because that didn't seem like my sort of thing. I said I wasn't running because it wasn't, they must have seen Denise and had the wrong Denise. But no, she showed me the ballot and there it was: Denise Clifton.
The first thing I did was go to the VP who was in charge of those sorts of extra curriculars and see if I could get my name removed. That's how much those sorts of things weren't my thing. But no. It was on there and shouldn't I really be excited by that? The chance to be on the Homecoming Court? To represent Highland's best and shiniest? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Yeah...sure. rah.
I think Ralph, Cinnamon and I spent an afternoon debating actually running hard for it. Like campaigning. A vote for the different. Go after the underclassmen to vote and the kids that didn't really care about popularity contests like that. A way to sort of fuck up their party. It was fun to think about, in its own nihilistic way, but to actually run seriously would mean a part of me took that sort of thing seriously and I was not prepared to do that. So I ignored it instead. Left my name there with the cavalcade of popular kids, hummed "One of these things is not like the others" and moved on.
The getting underclassmen to vote for you was a strategy I had seen used. My freshman year the TA in my Health class worked all of us for votes. We could get extra credit on papers and quizzes if we said we were voting for her. I cannot remember if I did end up voting for her or not. I know I was torn because on one hand I was impressed by her really wanting something, but on the other it sort of seemed like cheating since Homecoming Court is, at its core, a popularity contest for upperclassmen and just a few months in to school we had no idea who any of them were.
I also remember not liking how hard the Health teacher was campaigning for her. I'd like to say it was because of an imbalance of power dynamic or something high minded like that, but it was because I didn't like him. He really bugged me. I found out years later that he was a serial abuser of high school girls so my instincts were right on, but at the time all I knew was that when he turned his attention on me my face would do that my face thing and I had a hard time being respectful enough of his position to get an A in an easy A class. My instincts aren't always spot on, but they are usually pretty darn good.
I just checked my freshman year book and she did make the court. But I have no idea how popular she was outside of knowing her as the TA in Health so I'm not sure if she needed the extra votes or not. She did just make court, not Queen so maybe?
When they announced the court my senior year I...well I didn't make it. I mean, this isn't a John Hughes movie. I didn't take my glasses off and suddenly become so beautiful they all forgot that they HATED me. I mean, I wasn't even wearing glasses full-time just yet so I didn't have that trick to use! I do know that I got some votes because a few kids told me that they voted for me. Which was sweet in one way, and in another it showed they didn't really know me well at all.
I also voted for the court that year. Even though it wasn't important to me a few people I really loved (and still do) were on the ballot and I knew it wasn't a silly thing for them. I did not vote for myself, though I wish I had kept a copy of the ballot. Seeing my name there, out of spite or out of love, would now make me smile instead of the look of horror I had then. I still have no idea how it got there, but I do think it was probably not supposed to be kind. And that's okay too. Not everything in the world is kind. And maybe the fact that I wasn't heartbroken over it made them rethink their grand schemes to be an evil overlord and realize they just weren't cut out for that life and maybe working for a nonprofit would be a better idea.
Hey, you write your own 80s movie if you don't like that ending!
*I'm pretty sure I've written about it before. I managed to insult the entirety of Prep Hall (the conclave of jocks and popular kids) at the beginning of sophomore year. It lead to what is honestly one of the Top 5 moments of my high school career when I walked into school on Monday morning and the whole group took one look at me and then turned their backs.
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