Other people's endings

Highschool graduation episodes of teen tv shows make me tear up. This is a sharp contrast to real life, in which I hated highschool and shudder at the thought of returning. First it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer's season three finale, and then Dawson’s Creek. Now it’s the end of Veronica Mars’ second season (I'm a little behind, I know, but I've only recently returned to cable tv after a long stint in popular culture purgatory). BTVS and Veronica Mars especially purport to be critical of highschool’s highly stratified and emotionally degrading social culture yet their graduations both played out the same tired dream of “outcasts” (inasmuch as petite blonde white middle class girls can be outcasts) finally revered and applauded by their peers (cue swelling music). The lucrative mythology of highschool years as glory years is somehow enticing, and I must admit to missing some of the conveniences of home: how it was always more effective to ignore my mother in person, or the luxury of in-house laundry. I dream of the day when I have my own washer and dryer, especially after Friday morning’s slapstick affair of me and the local laundromaster combining our powers to untangle a pair of my panties from the washing machine’s inner workings. There’s nothing quite like seeing a portly middle-aged man waving your favourite thong around in triumph to make you reconsider the elasticity of your appliance budget.