Fold This!

I don't know what it's like now, but middle school/junior high for me seemed like an endless array of intricately folded paper.

First there were the notes. If passed from one to the other during class, a simple fold down the middle would typically suffice. However, if being saved to pass on at a later time, the amount of tricky folding the girls engaged in was beyond the level of most--if not all--amateur origamists. Many times I found it difficult to even open these masterworks, much less duplicate the system myself. You would be walking through the halls and all of a sudden this small triangle or square would be pressed into your hand, your name written in flowery scrawl across the front. These notes, by and large, had one purpose and one purpose only: to find out who you "liked". Sometimes the question would be direct. Sometimes it would be hinted. Sometimes it came with a convenient check box to minimize labor and conserve paper and was written to you straight from your admirer. (On a side note, what kind of a bastard did you have to be to just check "no" and give it back? Did anyone ever do that?) I remember trying to create some of these fold-a-thons, but it never worked out. After a while I gave up and just started balling up my notes and throwing them at their intended target.

Then, of course, there were the paper planes. Never figured those out either. I had friends who could have hired stewardesses and started full scale airlines with their paper jets. My feeble attempts nearly landed me in the special education classes.



The paper footballs. These could be found at each and every table in the lunchroom where sat two or more guys. Not only could I not make one of these, I was also terrible at the game itself. I was much more accomplished at the "pencil breaking" game, where one person holds a pencil horizontally between their fists, and the other person attempts to break it with another pencil. Was there strategy that involved removing the eraser and pressing the metal endpiece into a flat, sharp weapon? Yes, there was. If this is the first time you've heard of this game, you're probably thinking it's the most retarded thing you've ever heard of. You would be correct.

Finally, there were those paper games seemingly every girl in the country knew how to make. Internet research reveals they are sometimes called "Fortune Tellers" or "Cootie Catchers", but I don't remember anyone ever calling them either of those things. They were these little folded triangle contraptions that fit on your fingers, and the player would choose a color, then a number, then another number (or something, jesus, it's been a while, all right?) and then a tab would be lifted and some sort of something else would be said.





I never even tried to make one of those. One, it would have been impossible, and two, it didn't seem like the kind of achievement likely to improve my social life.