You'll want to be born a middle child. No one watches a midle child. Middle children are much more likely to be ignored than the baby who's constantly crying or the older sister with the charm of a modern-day Shirley Temple. You'll also want to be male, because if you're a girl, you must either look like a boy or be the ugliest chick on the face of the planet.

Go with looking like a boy, but put off all plans for a while. As a child, fall in love with zebras, penguins, pandas, and every other black and white animal you can think of. Chatter incessantly. Go to the zoo and stare longingly at the "zeebies" while your older sister complains that she wants to see the ocelot.

Try soccer for a while. Stop. Try violin for a while. Stop. Take up oboe and never quit. Point out whenever an oboe is plaing in a piece of popular music. Be mystified at the people who answer, "It sounds like a clarinet to me."

Hate clarinets. Discover Good Charlotte. Buy a Simple Plan cd and cover it with duct tape when your mother says the pictures on the cover are inappropriate. Watch in horror as your older sister writes something mean about Rent and punks on the cover.

Learn that your favourite French Canadian band is not, in fact, considered punk. Listen to them anyway. Find some bands that are considered punk and listen to them. Buy the Good Charlotte music video DVD and a Blink-182 t-shirt to go with the Ramones CDs your dad lends you.

Buy CDs like they're going out of style. Find a video game related to something called "emo." Discover a song called "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad. Decide that this Jesse Lacey guy might have an idea of what's going on.

Try Dashboard. Dump them when you decide they're commercialized crap. Buy a Maroon 5 CD. Curse the money you spent when you notice how similar they sound to N*SYNC. Discover this guy called Adam Lazarra and decide he might be worthwhile.

Get your hair cut to your shoulders when people start telling you that you look like Ozzy Osborne--more people than your weird older sister, who is still listening to Paul Simon like he's God.

Go to Warped Tour and wear a cool shirt. Point out other people with good t-shirts. Get dehydrated and miserable, to the point that you can't last past Taking Back Sunday's set. Throw up on the side of the highway on the way home and try feebly to convince your older sister that the weeds deserved it more than the people who would have been nearby watching Flogging Molly with you all.

Find a pen and name it The Emo Pen. Write heartfelt songs about the size of a sophomore's ass. Try doing some depressing songs about how much your life sucks. Name another pen the Hardcore Pen and keep it as a backup. Draw X's on your hands.

Cut your hair again so that you look like a boy. Purchase pants from thrift shops and search vainly for homeless-man sweaters that, unlike the ones your dad wears, you won't drown in.

Collect obscure bands. Venerate Conor Oberst like a saint. Honour also Neutral Milk Hotel, North to Emerson, The Early November, The Honour Recital, Fear Before the March of Flames, Hellogoodbye, and MC Lars. Giggle when you mention bands you dislike, as in, "*giggle* Atreyu sucks."

Read the history of punk and emo and bemoan the lack of scene in the area. Tell your older sister that she's not being helpful when she says that scene kids would hate you anyway. Dream of a world where you are the scenest of the straight-edge scene.

And always display your Michael Jackson pin prominently on your sidebag. Just because.

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This story was written for a Literary Writing assignment. In response to a piece of work called "How to Write," we were supposed to write a narrative-ish thing on how to do something. I borrowed my little sister's life story to explain how to be "emo."

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