Loser

"You're such a loser!" But what entails being a loser? Do losers fart and then make a farting sound to cover up, or are losers people who make up e-mail addresses like cool_girl22@hotmail.com? Our image of a loser has changed as we have progressed through life, but I find the way we defined losers when we were children the most entertaining. Not only did we once classify people as losers, but we also associated them with different degrees of "loser-hood." Someone could be a "real" loser, a "total" loser, or a "complete" loser. Just how did each loser fall under such a category?

A "real" loser displays the faintest symptoms of "loser-hood." He or she could be the geeky person who isn't the most fashionable. Ok, the one who wears enormous glasses and pants up to his/her chin. But a "real loser" is still o.k. to talk to, yet keep these conversations short just to be on the safe side. A "real" loser is the person who will do your homework in a valiant attempt to be "cool."

A "total" loser is the intermediate stage of "loser-hood." Once someone has reached this stage, it is very hard for them to turn back. People in this category seem to have an epileptic attack when they laugh. As a bystander, you're not sure whether to save them and grab hold of their tongue or pretend to be completely oblivious to this hysteria. If the bystander did decide to intervene, then he/she would be risking his/her own "coolness," and God forbid that. A "total" loser would stuff his mouth with horseradishes just to be written down in the yearbook as the "most likely" to do anything for attention.

And finally, a "complete" loser has no hope for ever escaping this merciless cycle; they have reached the epitome of "loser hood." These are the