If I Was The Sixth Kid in ‘The Breakfast Club’
October 12th, 2005
You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.
But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain… and an athlete… and a basket case… a princess… a criminal…
…and a guy who accidentally shot an arrow into his head, which just missed his brain but can never be removed, and sits there going in through his left eye and out the back of his skull…
That’s who I’d be if I was the sixth kid in The Breakfast Club.
If you really sit down and think about it, John Hughes’ classic 80’s flick was almost the pendulate classic story about teenagers and the different types of kids in the world at that time. Even today, we still have the brain and the jock and the outcast (or basket case) and the princess (or hot chick) and the rebellious criminal. But every school that I ever went to also had the kid with that one weird accidental physical ailment that made him/her stick out like a sore thumb.
That’s why, if I was the sixth kid in The Breakfast Club, I would be that kid with the arrow sticking out of his left eye. You’ve heard about stories like this on the news — people who get sharp objects accidentally shot through their head and they JUST MISS the brain and so they survive. Some of them, like the guy who got the arrow or the fishing lure or the sharp metal pick axe stuck in his head…have to live with it.
Well, what if the sixth kid (which was me) in that movie was that particular guy? Well, here’s some actual text from the movie The Breakfast Club with our new character “Guy With Arrow Stuck In His Head” inserted into the scene:
Claire Standish: You know why guys like you knock everything?
John Bender: Oh, this should be stunning.
Claire Standish: It’s because you’re afraid.
Guy with Arrow in Head: I was afraid when this arrow shot through my skull…
John Bender: Oh God, you richies are so smart, that’s exactly why I’m not heavy into activities.
Claire Standish: You’re a big coward.
Guy with Arrow in Head: Not me. See? I’m still smiling, even with this arrow in my head!
Brian Johnson: I’m in the math club.
Claire Standish: See, you’re afraid that they won’t take you, you don’t belong, so you have to just dump all over it.
John Bender: Well, it wouldn’t have anything to do with you activities people being assholes, now would it?
Guy with Arrow in Head: I’m in the archery club.
Claire Standish: Well, you wouldn’t know, you don’t even know any of us.
John Bender: Well, I don’t know any lepers, but I’m not going to run out and join one of their fucking clubs.
Andrew Clark: Hey. Let’s watch the mouth, huh?
Brian Johnson: I’m in the physics club too.
Guy with Arrow in Head: I go to cranial rehabilitation each Sunday.
John Bender: Excuse me a sec. What are you babbling about?
Guy with Arrow in Head: Just about my rehabilitation. I have an arrow in my head which all came out of being in the archery club, which is what I was saying…
Brian Johnson: Well, what I had said was I’m in the math club, uh, the latin, and the physics club… physics club.
Guy with Arrow in Head: I don’t know why you have to always try and one-up me, Brian. Sure, physics is cool and all, but it didn’t do me any good when this ARROW SHOT RIGHT THROUGH MY LEFT EYE SOCKET!
John Bender: Hey, Cherry. Do you belong to the physics club?
Claire Standish: That’s an academic club.
John Bender: So?
Claire Standish: So academic clubs aren’t the same as other kinds of clubs.
John Bender: Ah… but to dorks like him, they are. What do you guys do in your club?
Brian Johnson: Well, in physics we… we talk about physics, properties of physics.
Guy with Arrow in Head: And in the archery club we shoot sharp objects at targets.
John Bender: So it’s sorta social, demented and sad, but social. Right?
Guy with Arrow in Head: Definitely sad. I mean, having to go through life with an arrow in your head! Oh, man. I think I’m gonna cry.
Everyone looks to Guy with Arrow in Head, rolls their eyes.
—
I think there could be a lot of great moments for me as the sixth kid in The Breakfast Club.
There would be that sequence where everyone’s running around the halls and slipping and sliding around — that’s where me, as guy with the arrow in his head, would lighten the mood by making jokes about the arrow in his head. And remember that sequence where everyone is sitting around opening up and telling everyone about why they’re there in the library that weekend? Well as Guy with Arrow in Head, I would open up and tell everyone that the REASON I was there was because…
I would pause. A long pause… And then I would start to cry hysterically before ever telling them my reason and everyone would try to make me feel better — I suspect the Claire character would let me rest my face in her bosom and then everyone would want to know why I was there.. They’d keep asking until I blew up at all of them and yelled, “Why does everyone always have to ask the guy with the arrow in his head why he’s hanging around!? Why can’t a guy with an arrow in his head just BE? Why can’t he just BELONG!? Why does there always have to be a reason for the guy with the arrow in his head to be somewhere, huh? Sure, maybe I’m not stupid enough to let a flare gun go off in my locker… Sure, maybe I’m not pretty enough or criminal enough or sporty enough or baskety-casey enough to get detention for the weekend… But maybe this handicap is enough for me being here. Maybe we can all, for once in our lives, leave the guy with the arrow in his head alone!?!?!”
It would be an Oscar moment that everyone would remember forever.
Guy with Arrow in Head. Great idea #791 in a long list of great ideas.
The next screw that falls out will be you, Pauly.
Comment by Meg — October 12, 2005 @ 8:39 am
Pauly–quick question…is the end of the arrow (the part sticking out of your head) really long, or was it chopped off? Just wondering.
Comment by Hilary — October 12, 2005 @ 8:52 am
Thanks for asking, Hil.
That arrow is reaaaally long — in the archery club we work with the ones they make in Stockholm, so… Yeah, cut off.
Comment by Pauly D — October 12, 2005 @ 8:55 am
How did you get that arrow stuck in your head, anyway?
Comment by That Girl — October 12, 2005 @ 9:39 am
Since CGI was nowhere near as good in 1985 as it is today, they’d completely have to find a character actor with an arrow really shot through his head to play the part. Would you be willing to take one for the team in exchange for metric assloads of residuals?
Comment by Keith — October 12, 2005 @ 9:50 am
The only flaw I see in the stunning logic of this scenario is that you and Brian Johnson would have to end up hooking up. Since it was Princess/Criminal and Jock/Basketcase, well, instead of the Geek sitting there all alone — he would have you. You would realize that you had so much in common — that because of who you are (geek) or what you have in your head (you) neither of you will ever really FIT anywhere. Except with each other. You guys would go against the norm of the rest of the group and stay together. Forever.
I mean, it could be worse. Anthony Michael Hall has turned out to be pretty hot, as opposed to Judd Nelson, who just looks crazy.
Comment by Amber — October 12, 2005 @ 10:26 am
Did this arrow thing happen before or after you got punched?
Comment by ME Strauss — October 12, 2005 @ 11:35 am
pendulate story?
Comment by Neil — October 12, 2005 @ 11:40 am
This is Words For MY Enjoyment — I get to make up words, Neil.
Comment by Pauly D — October 12, 2005 @ 12:27 pm
Excuse me, Paul, but I have a little problem. See, I’m in the library, which is a QUIET ZONE, which means laughing out loud = not so much. I appreciate what you’re trying to do here and all, but please, you have to stop making me laugh here. IT IS A QUIET ZONE.
P.S. I fucking love the Breakfast Club. I want to be the princess in it.
Comment by Sarah — October 12, 2005 @ 12:46 pm
“That arrow is reaaaally long — in the archery club we work with the ones they make in Stockholm, so… Yeah, cut off.”
I was gonna ask the same thing…and I’m relieved to hear that it was cut off. Otherwise you’d stab the Claire character in the bosom when you tried to rest your arrow-speared-head against her…
Comment by Flower Girl — October 12, 2005 @ 1:31 pm
*Snort*
In high school, I was most like Alison.
“Look at me! I’m hiding!”
Of course, now that I’m a teacher, I have no tolerance for… well, much of anything, really.
I have yet to be roped into proctoring Saturday detention just yet.
But when I do, there will be no traipsing down the hallways and getting doobage out of lockers!
Comment by leesepea — October 12, 2005 @ 2:34 pm
My quick question: did you actually have that transcript memorized or did you have to look it up?
Comment by Becky — October 12, 2005 @ 3:32 pm
Please. I so had it memorized.
Okay, maybe not.
Comment by Pauly D — October 12, 2005 @ 3:38 pm
My all-time favorite movie…and now every time I watch it, I’m going to picture the sixth kid being YOU. Thanks a lot, Pauly.
Comment by Amy — October 12, 2005 @ 3:46 pm
“Guy with Arrow in Head: I don’t know why you have to always try and one-up me, Brian. Sure, physics is cool and all, but it didn’t do me any good when this ARROW SHOT RIGHT THROUGH MY LEFT EYE SOCKET!”
This post made my day. Thanks, Pauly, I needed that. I think WFME has therapeutic properties.
Comment by Glen C. — October 12, 2005 @ 4:43 pm
I totally thought the same thing as Amber did. You hook up with A.M.H. He can make you a ceramic elephant arrow cover that you can wear over your arrow when you go out in public. Just don’t expect it to fit right. (And if it doesn’t fit right, don’t tell A.M.H. cuz he’ll get all depressed and eventually one-up you as “Kid with Bullet in Head” and then you’ll NEVER get Claire’s sympathy again.)
Comment by T. Malone — October 13, 2005 @ 12:11 am
Ceramic elephant arrow cover.
T. Malone - you are a genius. It’s no wonder your site is called “I Smell Like A Genius” and that we never see you around here anymore. Your brain is just too big for us.
Comment by Pauly D — October 13, 2005 @ 4:46 am
fucking brilliant, pauly.
“Guy with Arrow in Head: I don’t know why you have to always try and one-up me, Brian. Sure, physics is cool and all, but it didn’t do me any good when this ARROW SHOT RIGHT THROUGH MY LEFT EYE SOCKET!”
Wouldn’t it be great if the “guy with arrow in head” also had a nervous tick? or tourettes?
Comment by jenny — October 13, 2005 @ 12:42 pm
If he had a nervous tick AND tourette’s syndrome AND spoke in a Scottish accent…that would rock.
Comment by Pauly D — October 13, 2005 @ 1:12 pm
Is that seriously a picture of you from high school?!? ROTFL
Comment by Kristi — October 17, 2005 @ 7:15 am