As the new editor-in-chief of the EHS-hub, I recently worked on a staff editorial about the vandalism that occurred two weeks ago (soon to be published). It was summer, and we hadn’t met as a staff yet. The task made me feel uncomfortable.

While I was heated about the destruction to my school and how it reflected on our student body image, truthfully, a part of me thought it was funny.

I just wish it hadn’t been our house. Do the stupid and funny in the privacy of your own home.

I guess that is what made me feel even more uneasy, the fact that I found myself finding the humor in something so horrible.

When certain actions take place, they solicit specific reactions. For instance, when a death occurs, everyone in that community will feel the heartache inflicted; it’s just natural.

But what do you do when your natural reaction to an incident doesn’t correspond with the “right” reaction?

I vacillated with that idea for some time. Do I write an editorial scorning the vandals for their childish actions or do I write an editorial talking about how we should move on and let bygones be bygones?

The members of our community who defaced our campus are members of our community, after all. If I did something regretfully stupid, I would hope the community would forgive me. I mean, we are teenagers. By our very natures we make stupid mistakes and suffer from a lack of clear judgement.

What makes these vandals’ actions unforgivable is their malicious intent. The destruction was just plain mean.

I am friends with one of the students who committed the vandalism. I don’t want anything too major to happen to him, but I am also embarrassed to say that I am friends with one of the guys that vandalized my school.

The story broke, and Mrs. Elisha Strecker, my adviser, and I communicated as I coordinated the coverage of it.

When Fox 2 reported the culprits were three boys and a girl, Mrs. Strecker said, “I think it was dumb boys.”

I argued we couldn’t single out one gender. A girl could do this, too. She was convinced due to the nature of the graphics drawn that the vandals were boys.

“Dumb boys will do dumb boy things,” she said. And she was right.

I try to accept people for who they are, flaws included. And I will maintain that friendship despite what he did because I acknowledge we all have an idiot inside of us. Even me.

Some of us just reign that idiot in better than others.