THE social hierarchy of your school days was insanely dumb. If you didn’t have any of these items you were at the bottom of the heap.
Rub-on tattoos
Nothing commanded respect among a group of eight-year-olds quite like turning up with a sleeve tattoo made entirely of flakey cartoon dinosaur transfers and the odd bit of temporary Transformers ink. The only thing more tragic than blowing all your pocket money on this status symbol was that they washed away come bath time.
Light-up trainers
The height of sophistication for any child under 10. If you rocked up to the playground in a pair of runners illuminated by flickering LEDs, jaws would hit the rubberised safety floor. You’d be treated like a god until you shorted them out by stepping in a puddle, then it was back to being the runt of the playground.
Coca-Cola pencil case
This beauty combined every child’s love of needlessly hoarding pencil sharpenings with drinks that cause tooth decay. When you slammed this pencil case onto your desk in maths class everyone knew you were the shit, even the teachers. All those cucks had were puny tins that couldn’t even house a 30cm shatterproof ruler. Pathetic.
Candy jewellery
Your £1 a week pocket money didn’t stretch to real jewellery, but it could afford necklaces and bracelets made out of flavourless sugary pellets. Candy was the real currency of the schoolyard anyway, so when you turned up decked out in your sweet shop bling you essentially owned the place. Try not to think about how that day was the highlight of your life.
Fountain pens
When your class made the leap from pencils to pens, there’d always be a couple of pretentious pricks who would turn up wielding top-of-the-range fountain pens. These kids would briefly be envied by all, until they accidentally bit into one of their refill cartridges, swallowed a load of ink, and had to spend the afternoon with the school nurse. Serves them right.
