Lessons I Learned in High School, Part I

My parents sent me to a Catholic high school in the hopes that I would receive a solid, college-preparatory education, as well as the moral and religious tools to help shape me into a good Catholic adult. I think it's no secret that the second part of that plan was almost a complete failure, but that's OK, I'm still a really nice person, I swear.

My sophomore year religion teacher was a nun in her early forties who wore lay clothing and motorcycle boots, I guess as some misguided attempt to appear cool to her students. But for all her fashion-forward ways, she was insanely conservative, and maybe just a little bit crazy. Case in point: it was in Sister A's class that I learned that thinking about sex leads to -- wait for it! -- serial murder.

Sister A explained that Ted Bundy once admitted that it was his sexual fantasies that led him down the path to brutally raping and murdering dozens of women. And we all know that Ted Bundy is not only perfectly sane and trustworthy, but he is actually THE go-to source for religion class curriculum. According to Sister A, sexual thoughts lead to masturbation, which then leads to porn, which leads to rape (oh, was that a bit of a leap? not according to Ted!), and then rape leads to murder. Makes perfect sense, no?

As you can imagine, telling 15-year-olds to not think about sex is like telling a baby polar bear not to be cute. It's simply impossible. So yeah. As far as I know, no one in my high school class has become a serial killer... YET. Evidently, it is thought that Ted Bundy's murder spree started in 1973 when he was 27 years old, and he wasn't caught until 5 years later. By that timeline, we still have two years before any of my classmates are collared for murder. I'll keep you updated.