Garfield does not have traditional homecomings. We don’t ask each other to the dance, we don’t get dressed up, we don’t rent limos. Therefore, it follows that our student body gets up to some unusual shenanigans at our unorthodox dances. As you prepare for the dance tonight, keep in mind these scenarios from past homecomings, and be prepared for things to get wild.

If … you are a freshman:

Not gonna lie: girls, you don’t really have to worry about this. No one is going to physically harm a freshman girl. Usually guys don’t have to worry about it that much either, but every so often there comes along an upperclassman boy who is completely batsh** crazy. This year, freshmen guys don’t need to be concerned, since ’010 is sane and ’011 is just a bunch of wimps anyway. However, back when ’010 were freshmen, one junior broke a skateboard on a kid’s behind before homecoming, which is the kind of thing that makes banning froshing seem almost sensible. This poor freshman probably couldn’t even dance at homecoming, unlike his classmate Miguel Castro, who says that when he was a freshman, he “danced with four ’07 girls at once. Swear.”

If … the dance starts late:

Homecoming 2007 was an ordeal from start to finish. Described by many as the worst dance of all time (until Tolo last year, that is), nothing seemed to go right for the attending students as soon as they began lining up at the door of the Exhibition Hall. The tickets proclaimed the dance to be starting at 9:00, and therefore students who weren’t still at home scrubbing peanut butter and ketchup out of their hair started waiting at about 8:30. After some 45 minutes, an ASB officer cracked the door and announced that whoops, the tickets were supposed to say 9:30, and that no one was getting in until then. Of course, the doors didn’t open until 10:00, and the ensuing shove to get in caused certain dancegoers to become intimately acquainted with a few ’08 armpits.

If … all hell breaks loose:

Again, Homecoming 2007: After an hour of dancing, during which GHS was getting hyphy as usual, the lights came on. As anyone who attended a Garfield dance of old knows, the last thing anyone wanted was for the chaperones to be able to see them more clearly, unless they are Nathan Rodgers (more on him later), or they just don’t care.

As 99 percent of the dancers ceased to gig, all eyes turned to the most oblivious couple in the universe, an ’09 boy and an ’010 girl. These two lovers (we’ll call the guy “Clive”), were going at it for all to see. A group of around 50 people surrounded them. Some partook in a slow clap, and others just threw pennies at them.

Shortly thereafter, the fire alarm went off. This was originally suspected by the less lucid students to be an administrative ploy to stop the grinding, but rumor has it that it was actually a desperate bid for freedom by a couple drunk kids who were sitting in timeout.

Finally, as the dance ended, two girls in coat check “started beating the bejeezus out of each other,” as ’09 graduate Sam Koelle phrased it. The fight was broken up by teacher Joseph Swarner, but not before one of them lost a tooth and scratched me in passing with one of her acrylics. As students left the dance, utterly confused, some remarked that it was unfortunate that ’011’s first high school dance had been so awful. Then they realized that no one cares about ’011.

If … Mr. Howard is baffled:

At the Exhibition Hall, there are several columns in the middle of the room. When homecoming was held there, these poles were the location of choice for more intense dancers. Naturally, Mr. Howard didn’t approve, and usually he would loosely enforce a policy of no pole grinding. However, one ’08 graduate didn’t see eye to eye with him. When Howard pointed a flashlight at him and commanded him to get off the pole, he responded with a cry of “SPOTLIGHT!” and proceeded to get even freakier with his dance partner.

If that wasn’t confounding enough, last year Howard faced the incident that was probably the real reason for his vehemence about changing the dance policy. A quick side note — girls, PLEASE watch where you’re going. Not only will you be able to better avoid dancing with that creepy handsy guy who always seems to be at dances, you’ll avoid embarrassing bloopers like backing it up on Mr. Howard, as one girl did at homecoming last year. Presumably she was never able to hear his voice through his megaphone again without cringing.