For the first time in about 4 years and two months…I did something I never imagined I would do. When I graduated high school and threw those tortillas and beach balls up in the air, I made two promises to myself. The first was not to have any bi-curious encounters while in college. The second was to never drive by that school again. I hate to say, I broke one of those promises…his name was Mike. Actually, I drove by that damn school. Most of you are probably asking yourself “Was high school really that bad for you Ricky? Were you bullied in school?” Actually no; it wasn’t that bad, I just hated it a lot. I was forced to attend the “prestigious” Damien High School in La Verne, California. Some of you may know that school and can kind of see where I’m coming from, others have no idea. Damien was an All-Male catholic high school. You know how hard it is to ask a guy to Prom? It’s tough. Do you know what it’s like to go to a school, full of nothing but guys, for four years? You’ve seen us at parties. You get a group of guys at a party and once someone passes out, they wake up with penises and “I’m gay” written on their face. I’m pretty sure you have once or twice fallen asleep in class. See, at any other school you can just fall asleep and that’s pretty much the end of that class. At Damien when you fall asleep, you wake up with duct tape bound around your head to the desk and with about 3 penises by your mouth and a detention for being late to your next class. Great times. I’m lucky to say, maybe happened to me once. I was always adamant about not going to that school when I spoke to my mom and dad. They told me it was “family tradition”. My uncles and my brother went there so that’s how I knew some of the stories. Whipping your penis out and calling another guy a “fag” for looking was a common routine. It sucks walking out of the shower and seeing it. “Aww shit! God damn, put that dick away” “FAG” “God damnit Dad”…I remember coming home every day and listening to all the great stuff going on at my other friends school and how people we went to school with were “growing” (aka developing boobs). On top of all that, most of the guys there were douches. Almost everyone there had money, well their parents owned a ton of money. I was driving a 1996 Nissan Gardening Truck with Detachable Mower while other guys were driving the new 2003 Inifities or BMW’s. It was fantastic. When I drove by last night, I realized some things that Damien has taught me. 1. Don’t fall asleep around guys. 2. No matter how times you look at a penis, it doesn’t make you gay unless you get a boner. And 3. No matter how much people talk how they were going to take over the family business, there’s aways Myspace and Facebook to show you that Peter was working as a Shift Leader at Tilly's for the past 4 years. 10 year reunion? F that…

-Chocolate Thunder