So it’s been almost ten years since I officially finished school – I KNOW – and it got me thinking this morning about all the ridiculous shit we as 17/18-year-olds got up to on the annual ‘Muck-Up Day‘.
If you don’t know what in fresh hell I’m on about, firstly I am so sorry that you missed out on this crucial rite of passage and secondly, welcome to how batshit wild high school was in Australia in the late 00’s. Beats me how nobody managed to get either seriously injured or arrested.
The premise of Muck-Up Day was as follows: last day of school before the HSC/final exams for year 12 is a total write-off, usually preceded by breakfast beers and/or champagne, bastardised versions of our school uniform and/or costume dress-ups, absolutely no classes whatsoever, and the entire graduating grade goes hog-wild for a day. Definitely pranks involved.
My high-school down the south coast of NSW (g’day Ulladulla High) tried their hardest to discourage muck up; threatening us with “no year 12 formal” or “being uninvited from graduation” if we participated in any hijinks. Did that stop people from sneaking into the school grounds overnight to find an unlocked classroom and drag all of the furniture out, only to recreate the classroom on the roof of the music building? No, sir, it did not.
So the call went out – what did other schools do for their muck-up? Or was there a high school urban legend about something so heinous happening in years gone by that muck up was unequivocally banned for all years to come?
And folks, boy did the Internet deliver.
From things like entire cars being wrapped in plastic, to glitter on the tops of ceiling fans in the thick of summer, to pigs heads being left on teachers’ cars – kids went fuckin’ WILD.
ours: very little.
the legend: the entire upper floor of a building covered covered in plastic cups filled to the top with water and all an inch apart from one another.— @lizduckchong@aus.social (@lizduckchong) May 16, 2018
Some people genuinely want to watch the world burn, hey.
https://twitter.com/michaelkoziol/status/996568064131911681
Ok, this is absolute genius. Can you even imagine everyone being so utterly confused by this detour?
Put a fish in the year coordinators office. Replaced the sword on the St Paul Statue with a dildo which led to the statue being taken down
There was always talks of how a class got a car onto a roof— ÚñÐêrwå†êr ßðï (@_Tatew) May 16, 2018
some boys at my school recreated that old add where thousands of rubber bouncy balls went down a hill but in our cafeteria and it was c h a o s
— beef bus (@binchbus) May 16, 2018
(I used to do this in a tiled room in my house as a kid and I can confirm, it’s pure chaos.)
https://twitter.com/pusher1990/status/996583651910430720
AHAHAHA GET ‘EM.
there was a myth that a group of kids led a few cows (???) up to the highest point of the school that looked over the main quad. this was scandalous because of the even bigger myth that cows can be lead upstairs, but cannot walk downstairs (???)
— jackson langford (@jacksonlangford) May 16, 2018
Ahh, yes. I believe the “take a cow upstairs cos they can’t get back down” allegedly happened in every school. A true classic.
https://twitter.com/mandawearspants/status/996572147488178176
Surely there’s got to be a moment in every teacher’s career where they all sit back with a beer and think “fuck me these kids are much more resourceful than we give ’em credit for.”
https://twitter.com/ewaterford/status/996569656168083456
But, my friends and esteemed colleagues in everything ratbag-related, this one takes the cake
A few years after I left, some guys put the school’s furniture on gumtree for their muck-up day.
— Ben Smith (@BenSmith94) May 16, 2018
I can only hope that someone haggled the school down from whatever price they listed them as.
