My 10th high school reunion's on the horizon, and for once, I'm not interested in going back, so if anyone wants to talk about it, then they can ride the train back to Shuttytown! (Borrowed that from Doug Heffernan of "The King of Queens.") And I'll tell you why.

Some of my worst years were spent in middle school, where I got beaten up every day, and when I left, I thought that that would be the end of it. I thought wrong. The mimute I stepped through the doors of my new school for the first time, the teasing started up again. And for the next four years, I got picked on endlessly and mercilessly, except when I showed off with my dancing skills (I attended all of my school dances during those four years); another favorite memory is whenever I would get up on stage at an assembly and yell at the top of my lungs: "IS '97 IN THE HOUSE?!!" setting off wild cheers in the crowd. However, I also got booed for saying the same thing, and it was at a pep rally in my senior year. The boos came from the underclassmen, but I expected that to happen.

There was a time when I once thought I would make a great singer, and I decided to pattern my style after the late, great Luther Vandross, who was (and continues to be) one of my favorite R&B singers of all time. But I never sang a solo in my four years there; the closest I ever got was in 10th grade, when I was tried out for a few weeks, until someone else got the part. I did sing a solo at a concert once, but that didn't count because the person who usually sang it wasn't there on that day, and I decided to take it without any previous notice.

I'm convinced that I know why I was mistreated the way I was: It's because I had a very limited social life. I was very timid and carrying scars from the middle-school beatings of old. Even though I got some of my classmates' phone numbers, I would throw them away because I was too scared to call. But now, with the evolution of the Internet, I can send emails to anyone I choose.

Sorry, Baltimore, but I no longer see you as a hometown, even though I still listen to your jazz station online. I live in Charlotte now, and I have made lots of new friends at Central Piedmont Community College, so if you want to take me back, it's far too late for it. So to any former high school classmate who wants to invite me back to this reunion, or any other in the future, I'll tell you one more time that I'm not interested, and I'm not going back, so you all can just go on back to Shuttytown! Man, that felt good dissing my old classmates. They deserve it after what they did to me. But I would never do that to any of my classmates at CPCC, and let's hope I'll never have to.