99 Problems

1. homophobic parents
2. I had to give my dog, Monster, away, we had him for 5 years, I had to give him away because he’s a pit bull and our new apartment is racist against pits.
3. bullying–girls tearing girls down, why can’t girls build girls up?
4. low grades, you got to make them high grades, that’s a problem
5. always tired
6. anxiety
7. anxiety
8. people underestimating just how overwhelmed I am
9. I don’t know
10. you scared me
11. trouble with communication
12. family and school
13. soap collapses like egg whites when you beat at it for too long
14. Bev Courtney
15. Bev Courtney doesn’t think she’s a problem and that’s a problem
16. no left over pasta
17. leaky shower
18. squishy floor
19. I’m too moody, maybe it’s because of the damn squishy floor
20. not having a raincoat when it’s raining
21. not having an umbrella when it’s raining
22. only having Old Navy stupid sandals when it’s raining
23. when your taking your long, beautiful time in the shower and the water suddenly gets cold
24. a teacher trying to put problems in student’s mouths
25. moving to a new school
26. my coach says we can’t throw cheerleaders in the air
27. Deanna says that’s not really a problem
28. Deanna says everybody’s gonna know the cheerleading problem is hers because Cesar A’s the only other athlete in here, and football players don’t throw people in the air a ton
29. If you clench wads of toilet paper in your fists while you’re hiking, you’ll leave little tissue trails like so many scattered breadcrumbs across the forest floor
30. my sister’s wet the bed
31. this 2 dollar food is too delicious and it’s making me fat
32. taking notes everyday is bad for my carpal tunnel
33. notes, what notes? we were supposed to take notes?
34. when you miss one day of school and you go from an A to a F and your teachers don’t give you time to make it up
35. everyone on Varsity wants to be a star player all by themselves
36. everybody’s looking at MaxPreps instead of the scoreboard
37. Oñate has 3 really good teams, Freshman, JV, Varsity but we just stink in games
38. too many books, too little time said one girl out of 4065 girls
39. the fact that women are afraid to walk alone
40. men who make us feel that way
41. the senators and congressmen who think all the rape victims are lying
42. the senators and congressmen who think how dare this woman drag a man’s name through the mud
43. the hundreds of thousands of rape kits sitting in a police station closet that never get processed
44. the children who go to bed hungry because our country can’t get its shit together to care about all the people here
45. just violence
46. the ginger teacher in training says, what isn’t a problem?
47. hi, welcome to Chili’s
48. people don’t work together
49. Waluigi not in Smash
50. love
51. people who have problems when other people objectify themselves
52. My Chemical Romance broke up
53. Justin Bieber
54. nothin’s true
55. I asked Nate what a problem was and he looked at me like a tired boulder and Joseph C, his neighbor, said people
56. overplayed pop songs
57. the school smells like fish
58. the school smells like Joe’s Crab Shack on the 5th of July, after hours, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
59. North Korea
60. guinea pigs, I had 3 guinea pigs, one died and the other 2 ate him and then the other 2 died from eating his poisonous guinea pig meat, true story
61. relationships
62. lack of responsibility
63. hypocrisy
64. feelings
65. grandma forcing me to eat more
66. puberty
67. puberty some more
68. still puberty
69. mumble rappers
70. going to school all damn early
71. hitting your small toe against something
72. hand stuck in a pickle jar
73. there’s no more marching band
74. not having the liberty to go out with friends
75. waiting until December to celebrate Christmas
76. waiting until October to celebrate Christmas
77. dad jokes you can find when you search “dad jokes” on Google
78. educated people are hot because they have more degrees
79. did you hear about the kidnapping, don’t worry he woke up
80. weed laws
81. white women pulling their kids closer when someone of color walks by
82. poverty
83. people in poverty when they say they chose to live this way
84. small toilets
85. losing course credit after 5 unexcused absences
86. bubble gum that tastes like Pepto
87. I asked Juan for a problem and he just smiled at me with these sweet brown eyes and shook his head, it’s like he doesn’t have any problems on the tip of his tongue, it’s almost like he’s the buddha on top of A Mountain, it’s like he doesn’t have a single issue reverberating from his vocal chords, and I guess that’s a problem, I’m the teacher and I told the students to tell me a problem and dammit, Juan should have a problem and he should have it quick, I’ll flunk him
88. teachers who flunk Juan because he doesn’t have a problem
89. teachers who use grades against kids like a piano wire cold around their necks, just barely pressing into their skin
90. my daughter was crying hysterically over something stupid and I told her, I’ll give you something to cry about, and she said, I already have something to cry about
91. maybe that’s a problem
92. the church choir that couldn’t hit the highest notes, the most heavenly notes  
93. Maria G says, you’re in my seat
94. I say, why are you late
95. she says, flu shot
96. everybody knows if you got the flu shot, the flu’s not a problem
97. the white lady that says, can I talk to your manager?
98. stepping in water while you have socks on
99. talking about problems on Lemon Haze