Storytime

The D List

At Balmoral High School, the social ladder has three tiers: the A List, the B List, and the D List. The A List have rooms with attached bathrooms, cars they didn’t pay for, and allowances big enough to pay for clothing, snacks, and weed. If the A List doesn’t have these things, then they have some look or skill that can’t easily be achieved, like large boobs, or a snowboarding sponsorship with Burton. The A List has imaginary cameras that follow them at all times making everything they say, do, eat, and buy important and special. Sometimes the A List spray-paints the school sign “oral Sex School”, because it’s funny and they can afford to fuck up.

The B List grew up with or went to school with the A List, but whereas the A List glimmers, the B List is a little thick around the middle with acne scars and split ends. The B List tries. They’re on the school teams, they throw parties when their parents go away, and they put the appropriate amount of layers in their hair, but although the B List rolls with the A List, the B List does not shine. The B List knows that the A List makes them look bad but they stay with the A List hoping that not only will some of that A List sheen rub off on them, but that they will leave a slight imprint of themselves on the A List to prove they have identities after all.

The A List pretends not to see the B List’s flaws because the A List are truly amazing people. But more importantly, the A List can’t only spend time with each other because they would blind each other with their brightness, and what’s the point of brightness when you can’t see?

The D List attends all the same functions as the A List and the B List, but the D List does not get invited – they invite themselves. The D List has eating disorders, jeans of the wrong cut, and journals of embarrassing moments. At parties, the D List talks to as many A List and B List people as possible (even though the harder the D List tries, the lower their rank). But still, the D List mingles with determination, asking safe, non-intrusive questions like orange-skinned entertainment show hosts. The D List compliments the A List and the B List, then chuckles at their jokes from somewhere in the back of their throats, believing that no one notices when they do a room scan to see if there is anyone better they could be talking to.

The A List and the B List pity the D List because it’s so obvious how hard the D List tries to be something they will never be. And it’s true – the D List is pitiful. They cannot befriend other D Listers since there would be no gain in the relationship, and they are shunned by the A List and the B List. But what the D List doesn’t know is that the A List and the B List cherish them more than anything in the world, because without the D List, they wouldn’t exist.