Last Thursday, I served my first detention. Woohoo! Yes, it was because of the walkout, and no I couldn’t do it on the Friday everyone was suppose to go. It was an interesting experience. There were a good number of people there, but what I got was completely different from what I expected.

I thought detention was this place that students went to not go to class and have a ton of fun. I assumed that it would be like some type of underground casino where the teacher held an illegal poker game and the buy-in was a basket of kittens. Or it was this huge party with the school’s misfits bonding over drinks and junk food with a setting of a carnival where you could see the Ferris wheel in the background.

And, on the other hand, I was kind of hoping for a remake of The Breakfast Club, Niles West version. Boy did that, and every other, movie lie to me.

I never once got a detention because all my life adults told me that it would be the end of the world if I got a detention, and colleges wouldn’t accept me because I am a miscreant, but much to my surprise, everything I was told was a lie. Yes, everyone, colleges don’t see the number of detentions you got in high school. Now, looking back, it makes sense: I mean it’s not like your professor cares whether or not you attended ONE 42-minute high-school class?

You’re right. They shouldn’t, and they don’t. It took me almost 12 years to figure that out.

Okay, so listen, I am not condoning skipping school and taking a detention (because that little paper carries the weight of monopoly money, as in none) I’m just saying that if you were like me you don’t have to be stressed anymore if you get a detention for being tardy.

Flashback time.

Sophomore year I was late to homeroom twice, and my homeroom teacher said I would have to get a detention. It was homeroom, I thought, she couldn’t be serious. But she was. I was scared off my butt. I really didn’t want a detention ruining my clean record, so I bargained with her. I begged her not to give me the detention and in exchange if I was ever late again she could give me a two-hour or Saturday. I planned on never being late after that.

Such a waste of time.

In detention you can’t eat, drink, listen to your iPod, talk, or sleep. All you could do was sit silently and do homework or read. I was so bored; I couldn’t help falling asleep every other minute. I mean, seriously, if you see my Astronomy notes, there are lines going everywhere for each time I drifted off.

I had high hopes; unfortunately, they were severely let down. Tell me about your first detention: What awesome thing did you do to earn it? Or tell me about your most memorable detention; prove my pathetic story wrong.