The Highschool Game

School life is like a video game. Trying hard to beat the grade. All while we are still collecting fame.

Kidding. This isn’t a parody. But looking at my school life as a child- it was just that. A video game.

I don’t know how long this went on for other people; but up until I was nine years old I was convinced that teachers despawned after the final bell.

I mean the whole school staff is just like a bunch of non-playable characters. (NPCs.) The teachers, princables, lunch ladies, office attendants, janitors, and even the bus drivers! All of them seemed like strategically placed npcs.

Some would assist you on epic quests, others would stop them. (Darn playground monitors!) The bus drivers would take you where you needed to go. Which let’s face it: as a nine year old that consisted of my house, a friends, and the occasional field trip.

Field trips were rare and exceedingly difficult quests. Ones that often featured new boss fights and strange riddles the teachers expected us to solve. Too bad we never learned to listen to guest speakers…

Teachers. Sometimes they were the most advanced AI in this little game and other times they were the most robotic.

Especially in the case of high school many of these ‘npc teachers’ would help advance our personal storylines. Whether it was aiding us on our way into a college or laying down an ultimatum. Normally ones that involve bad grades.

Then one day at the grocery story… this nine-year-old’s fantasy was shattered. Standing next to me in line was a teacher. And not just any teacher. A math teacher! This NPC’s riddles were the worst but somehow the game must have glitched. It was the weekend but here he stood.

Perhaps a malfunction? Special event? Corrupted save maybe? Critical game failure? Oh geez, I’m running out of options here.

Then I realized something… walking up to my middle aged teacher I stared at him. My eyes burning with amazement. “You’re alive!” I told him. “YOU’RE ALIVE!!!” I kept repeating it with increased enthusiasm until I was shouting. I remember the teacher looking at me. The confusion in his eyes grew immensely beneath his receeding hairline. (A common problem with math teachers as I have learned.)

My mom ended up dragging me out of the store that day. But now I was the one stacking up error codes. For once I think I understand how that old Internet Browser felt. So much information had flooded my mind- instantaneously! I didn’tknow how to begin processing this epifany I brought about. Sure I tramatized a teacher in the process but what was more important here?

It wasn’t that I was a mean kid. I had never really thought about where teachers went after school. Some how it just seemed like they didn’t exist outside of those brick prisons. After all half of them just repeated the same thing every time you interacted with them.

For every person that ever had this problem.

Congrats.

You just got: MINDBLOWN.