Too Real Thursday: Guest Blogger LEILA SALES

Those of you who haven't yet read Leila Sales' Mostly Good Girls are in for a treat when you get your hands on this hilarious and heartfelt portrayal of the agonies and ecstasies of the high school experience. Those of you who have read it already know that Leila is laugh-out-loud funny. Who better to share with us a tale of high school woe, then, on this nearly-summer-Friday? 

A prevailing theme in my novel Mostly Good Girls is “not knowing any boys, and therefore behaving like a total fool whenever you happen to run into them, because they are a rare and exotic breed.”

            

Like Violet and Katie in Mostly Good Girls, I went to an all-girls high school, so, like Violet and Katie, I had only humiliating experiences with boys until I was 18 years old (and sometimes still to this day).

For example, one afternoon when we were seniors, three of my friends and I went to Pizzeria Uno. Our waiter was a unremarkable-looking college-aged guy. We ordered a large cheese pizza and Diet Cokes, and we giggled uncontrollably whenever our waiter walked by, and then at the end of the meal we left him a note on a napkin that said, “We love you.”

            

Why did we do this? I honestly do not know, but I’m sure we made this average-looking dude’s life. I imagine that even now, at the age of 32, he goes around telling the story of how four teenage girls once fell in love with him on sight. We probably warped his self-perception forever.

            

This is not, incidentally, the most mortifying thing that my friends and I ever did to a boy. It’s just the most mortifying thing that I am allowed to talk about without my best friend (to whom I dedicated Mostly Good Girls) screaming at me, “Shut up! I hate that story! Everyone respects us less when you tell that story!”

            

There are many significant benefits to an all-girls education, and I remain tremendously grateful that I had that experience; however, as Violet remarks in my book “talking to boys without choking on my own saliva” is not a major part of the curriculum.

First off: that story makes me respect you MORE, Leila!

And secondly: ZOMG, do I wish I had know you in high school. 

Misery loves company, right?