First of all, how awesome would it be to pull the fire alarm? Being responsible for getting 2,000 kids out of class, while pissing off at least 50 teachers and who knows how many lunch ladies just seems like exactly something that could have really boosted my 16 year old self-esteem. It would mean more than just bragging rights, too. It would mean that I had proven to myself that I was capable of doing something extraordinary. If you can get the guts up to pull the fire alarm, you know you have the stress-defying skills to nail a high-pressure job interview in the future. That’s what I say, at least.

Another thing I had always wished I had done is gotten into a fight. I remember there was a point in my senior year of high school where I realized I had never been in a fight before, and time was running out before my 18th birthday, at which point fighting could mean jail time. I just couldn’t come up with a decent way to pick a fight, and I think no one would have taken my 110 lb A seriously had I tried to start something anyway. But I yearned for the experience.

When I think about these things now, I wonder: Is wishing I could have done stuff like this as bad as if I had done it? I mean, on Law & Order people get locked up for just wanting to commit a crime. Right? And take Bill Clinton for example: when he said that he didn’t inhale, but he wished he had (MTV interview if I’m not mistaken), wasn’t that pretty much the same for people’s opinions of him as if he “had” actually inhaled?

So anyway, by saying that I wish I would have pulled the fire alarm, I hope I don’t have to pay up later on as if I actually had done it. I’d always been envisioning St. Peter greeting me at the pearly gates with a tape recorder of all the dumb things I ever said in my life anyway, so I think this would be a great one to add to his playlist.

I guess I’ll just find out when I get there. Hopefully I can strike up some sort of a deal with him to keep that tape under wraps.

All things aside, I think I’ve had a pretty good life, even though I never did pull the fire alarm or get into a fight with someone besides my younger brother. I survived high school without anything bad happening to me, and I never inhaled anything more toxic than a pixie stick (that was to impress a girl in 10th grade, btw). The one thing I do regret never doing, however, is streaking. I just don’t think I could ever get away with running across a public place naked now that I’m grown up. In high school, I think I would have been a hero to the entire student population at my school, and the worst fear of every parent whose kid told them about what I had done. It would be awesome, and I’m thinking it would feel surprisingly nice.

Oh well, right? Maybe I can live out that dream vicariously through one of my kids someday.

I think Kristen will kill me when she reads that!

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