To Be Elected

The High School Class President


It started as a cruel joke.

Joe, the most popular high school student and quarterback who had already been offered multiple college scholarships, was running unopposed for Class President. Who would dare?

All the girls held lottery tickets to see who would date him next; all the guys wanted to be seen next to him. The Principal said, someone must run against Joe. Joe thought it would be funny to list the retarded kid as an opponent.

Dewey was everything Joe was not. He was a midget, asthmatic, wore coke-bottle lens glasses, never learned how to tie his shoelace, and he had more pimples than he had face. He stuttered and snorted when talking. He carried a lunch box everywhere, and inside was all the medication he had to take throughout the day.

Joe made posters for Dewey and put them in places no one would look. Meanwhile girls took lottery tickets to see who could design Joe’s posters and place them around school. It was clearly going to be no contest.

At first, no one even knew that Dewey was listed as a candidate. When word leaked out, the teens laughed uncontrollably. Even Dewey did not know he was a candidate, and then the Principal had to explain it to Dewey five times a day. It was going to be a landslide. Dewey could not even read to able to check his own name, so he would not even get one vote.

I would like to say, somehow the tide turned. I would like to say, kids felt sorry for Dewey; but come on, Dewey was a joke. What happened instead is that Joe was caught using drugs. Joe ended up going to court, losing his scholarships, and the girls decided Joe was now officially a loser.

Meanwhile, since Dewey was the only candidate listed in the election, he won by default. He did not understand he won, did not understand what it meant to be the Class President, and as everyone knows, the Class President really does not do anything in high school anyway.