blue skirt blues

Blue Skirt Blues

[meaghan igel]

“Give them a ruler, and they shall rule the classroom…” – Susan S, Catholic school survivor

Magnificat High School of Rocky River, Ohio: home of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary (nicknamed the “Blue Nuns” for their blue habits – until Vatican II, that is); prison for many Cleveland-area girls; and determiner of my life and my fate for four years of my existence. The survivors are few, but they are proud of their quirks and emotional scars and wear them with pride. After all, how many women can use “I went to an all-girls school” as a topic of conversation at a cocktail party? All Mags girls hold the idiosyncrasies of their school close to their heart and use them as identifying factors and bonding tools. You know you are a Magnificat girl when:

…the “Student Concerns” office, in all actuality, shows absolutely no concern for the students and is instead a place of traumatic stress in the forms of “Sorry I’m late,” “Why am I being called to see the Assistant Principal this time?” and “Please don’t give me a violation!” Furthermore, the Guidance office offers little to no guidance at all and encourages girls to fend for themselves when making momentous college decisions (as long as those decisions consist only of Ohio state schools, Catholic schools in Ohio, and Catholic schools elsewhere). A small Dutch Reformed liberal arts college out of state is completely out of the question and will result in instant excommunication).
…you remember getting a day off when Pope “J.P. Two” died and turning on the television in class to see Pope Benedict get elected because you were “watching history in the making” instead of learning those subjects required by the State of Ohio. The State can’t tell us what to do, anyway…unless we’re using State-given laptops in the library (in which case we’ll be yelled at by librarians for jokingly using them to go on Jesus.com).
…you think that rolling skirts up to make them shorter is tacky and uncomfortable, and you would much rather wear them long and saggy, in the popular style of a gangsta rappa. This way, the shorts or boxers you’re inevitably wearing underneath your skirt (so you can safely sit in an unladylike manner) can be prominently displayed. Covered kneecaps are optimal, especially because with skirts worn in this manner and the right pair of knee socks (which are way more fun, anyway, as socks are the only way to physically express your individuality when in uniform), legs that have gone lazily unshaven for many a month can be discreetly hidden. In addition, you are mildly disappointed that all the other girls’ schools get old-school plaid skirts that look like kilts, whereas your skirt is a solid navy blue. Just because the blue nuns don’t wear their habit anymore doesn’t mean you should have to carry on the proud tradition for them.
…a truly brilliant senior prank is to come into school with the white uniform polo shirts brightly tie-dyed. Well done, class of 2008. Well done. You made your predecessors proud.
…the approximate megaton of oil on your face from the previous day counts as makeup and/or oil in your hair from the previous day counts as a pomade of sorts to keep the classic “Magnifibun” (a.k.a. the “Rat’s Nest,” the “Roadkill,” or, as it is known in the real world, the “Messy Bun”) firmly in place. The same amount of this oil could a) fry up enough French fries to feed an army, b) run the school’s generator for about a month, and/or c) cause mass chaos and the destruction of entire species if spilled anywhere in the ocean.
…you must import boys from the all-guys (i.e. St. Edward, St. Ignatius) and/or public schools (i.e. Fairview, Bay Village, Westlake) in the area for all of your plays and theatrical productions if you don’t want to run the risk of completely anti-Shakespearean shows consisting entirely of women…even in the men’s roles (these undesirable roles often go to freshmen).
…your teachers consider The Scarlet Letter and Romeo and Juliet as effective soap boxes from which to preach good Catholic doctrinal values about the evils of contraception and abortion, and to praise abstinence and encourage girls to “keep an aspirin between [their] knees.” (Yes, this was actual advice for the real world given to me by one of my theology teachers.) You know for a fact, however, that the girls will not heed this sage advice, resulting in numerous abortions and “accidents” per class, like the affair of “Six in Oh Six"; (six infants “immaculately conceived” in the class of 2006 to girls between their junior and senior years). These girls were identified with Scarlet H’s (“H” is for “ho” or “hussy”) for the small amount of time before they were “encouraged” to leave the Magnificat community.
…a boy walks into the school building, and within five minutes every girl in the school knows his name, height, hair color, eye color, school, year in school, relationship status, type of car, favorite food, music of choice, deodorant preference, date of birth, checking account number, and social security number.
…a tuition of $8,000 a year gives us nothing if not piteous stares and exclamatory statements from future acquaintances, a sense of entitlement and the right to sneer haughtily at public school kids, and excellent future satiric potential.

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