In high school, dorks ride the school bus. Did you know this? If you ride the bus to school, it is for one of two reasons: You are a freshman. No one will give you a ride.

        Every guy wears two shirts. No one tucks them in. The inside shirt must be a T-shirt. It must hang an inch below the outside shirt. Always.

        Pants for guys must hug exactly four inches below the hips. Any more than four inches, you are a “thug.” Any less, you are a “loser.”

        Party's out, school's in. Rules is rules.

        “Is it still important to be popular?” I ask.

        We've gathered the tribe on the deck out back. Kelly, a k a The Kid Down The Hall; Donny, his friend; and Brittany, Donny's girlfriend. After two months as an inanimate object slipcovering the couch, The Kid is a high school junior, somehow, like it or not. (He's not thrilled.) His friends are seniors. They know what they know.

        “To some people,” they decide, popularity matters.

        I delight them with tales from my high school. “At Winston Churchill High, home of the mighty Bulldogs,” I say, “there was a hierarchy in the lunchroom.”

        “A what?”

        “The cool people ate one place, the pretty cool people ate in another, the not very cool people had their spot and everyone else got food thrown at them.”

        “Yeah, Dad? Which one were you?”

        “Everyone knew his place. It was big news if someone switched groups.”

        “Did you ride the bus, Dad?”

        “Sure.”

        “What a dork.”

        There are eternal truths in high school: Kids fit in somewhere. Students drive nicer cars than teachers. Goths don't hang with preppies, nor stoners with jocks. The cafeteria meatloaf is suspicious.

        “Is it cool to have a date for Homecoming?” I ask.

        “Yes.”

        “Is it cool to have a date for Homecoming that you actually dance with?”

        “No.”

        I had this friend, Jack Perkins, who was just a sophomore guy like the rest of us, until he started dating Val Fliakas. Val Fliakas was a senior cheerleader. I didn't see Perk much after that. Perk was a made man.

        “Is it cool for younger guys to date older girls?”

        “For the guy,” Brittany says.

        There is so much we don't know about our kids, and this is mostly good. I tend to operate on a need-to-know basis. Unless you're breaking the law or being unsafe, I don't need to know.

        “What's the difference between a dork and a loser?” One gets too-good grades, I'm told. The other drops out.

        “Does anyone put pennies in his loafers?”

        “What?”

        “Is it important to drive a nice car?”

        “It's important to drive.”

        “Is it cool to be a jock?”

        At Churchill, Greg Della Penna was all-Metro Washington, D.C., as a wide receiver and a basketball player. He was cool.

        “Nobody says, “Look, he's a football player, he's cool,' ” my panel decides.

        Between now and June, The Kid will take two showers a day, yet never comb his hair. He'll probably have a date for Homecoming, but he won't ask her to dance.

        He'll sag his pants the proper four inches. He'll have a ride to school, every day. He'll remember to wear two shirts. He'll forget the book he needs, for the test he has the next day.

        He'll fit in, somewhere. The people around him will think he's cool. That will be enough.

        As for those of us past the point of caring about cool, we just hope he remembers his lunch money.

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