Operation OPCO and a Failed Social Experiment

I am really, really, really sorry you have been curious about Operation OPCO all your life, but I promise you the wait will have been worth it.

It’s about a very popular kid (me) who thinks she is not popular at all (me) and what she does to make another kid popular (Chana Oppenheim) and what happens to the popular and not popular girls in Class 407.

It all began with a book I read in elementary school. It was about a group of kids who, as a joke, make a nerdy girl in the class into a popular girl. I forget the name of the book. But I remember how fascinating the concept seemed to me.

In ninth grade there was a group of popular girls. Chany. Esty. Raizy. They were the main ones. Then there were some more that orbited around them. Frieda. Suri. Leah. Chayie.

I never knew where I was in the picture and that made my life very complicated. I was best friends with Suri, but Suri was old, old friends with Chany. And their parents davenned together in shul. I could not compete with that. And not only that, but the tznius teacher actually davenned in their shul too. I definitely could not compete with that. But I really liked Chany and her mother liked me. Which was an unusual situation as most parents tried to warn their daughters against being friends with me. something about my behavior and chutzpah. I have no idea.

But anyway, ninth grade was an interesting year. And I was ready for interesting stuff. So one night, after we had spent over an hour making prank calls on various people who we randomly called from Suri’s house (Is your refrigerator running? Quick! Go catch it!), and other mature activities that bored ninth graders do, we ran out of prank ideas. And Operation OPCO was born.

“I read a book,” I announced. And I told them about it. The girls were intrigued.

“Who can we make popular?” Suri asked.

Some names were bandied about. But it was I who had the most brilliant, daring idea. “How about Chana Oppenheim?” I asked.

There was a stunned gasp.

“It’s never going to work,” Raizy said. “Never.”

And of course, when someone tells me that, my stubborn, contrary side kicks in and I HAVE to do it.

Chana had yellow teeth, thin, straggly hair pulled into a messy ponytail and she ate greasy garlic potato chips every day. Chana was a little slow and came to school with dirty uniforms and flapping soles on her shoes. She could never participate in class and had no friends. The smell and mess kept everyone away.

Today, schools are so much more aware of how to help girls like Chana but in our days, the best a school could do was keep a girl like that in class until she was eighteen and could graduate with an empty piece of paper rolled up in a ribbon handed to her at graduation. Today a girl like Chana would have social services making a visit to her house to help with cleanliness. She would have new shoes and uniforms. She would get all kinds of special help and tutoring to learn. Teachers would help her make friends. But that’s today. In my days, nobody knew what to do. So they did nothing.

Nobody was ever mean to Chana, but nobody was nice either.

My idea was simple.

First, I would ask Morah Frank to move my seat next to Chana. She would never say no to that kind of initiative. Maybe I didn’t feel popular, but I knew I was a somebody in my class. And Morah Frank would be thrilled to have Somebody, any somebody, befriending Chana.

Next, I would begin writing notes to Chana during class. That’s something only really good friends do. Because your friend needs to be important enough to get into trouble for. And I knew that no teacher would get me into trouble for writing notes to Chana. Like Morah Frank, they would be so happy to see a friendship budding.

During recess, we would pull our chairs around Chana’s seat instead of around Chany’s or Esty’s or Raizy’s seat as we had always done.

And the crowning glory of this idea?

We would invite her over on Shabbos.

Now let me explain. In ninth grade, it was a big deal to get invited out for Shabbos afternoon little get-togethers. The most popular girls got invited out every single Shabbos to at least two get togethers and had to make sure to walk to each girl who invited her. I was usually invited to two to three get togethers a month. Not bad. Not great.

So getting invited was a social thing, not a boredom thing. And getting invited by the Big Three was major stuff. So I volunteered Chanie to invite Chana first.

Now, I wasn’t brave enough to invite Chana to my house, but Chanie was not only popular, but she was confident and sweet and really, really good. So she said yes. No problem.

And so OPCO came into existence. Operation Chana Oppenheim.

And it was a huge success.

When girls saw us including Chana at recess, scribbling notes to her during class, and inviting her for Shabbos afternoon, even the girls who were not in on the operation simply followed our lead. The change in the class’s behavior towards Chana and the change in Chana’s behavior towards the class—and school—was dramatic. She talked, she studied for tests, she took tests, she stopped eating garlic potato chips.

What began as a game became life altering.

And culmiated in Chana finally, for the very first time, inviting girls for Shabbos afternoon.

And the funny part? After being left out of life for so long, you would think she would invite everyone from the class so nobody should feel left out. But no, she took her little revenge by picking and choosing. And girls were actually insulted when they didn’t get invited, much to our amused delight!

There isn’t a very happy ending.

We eventually got bored of trying so hard, I moved out of that class, and the class moved onto to other things. Although Chana never fully reverted back to her pre-OPCO status, the change was not long-enduring. Therapy and other adult involvement would have been necessary for such a permanent change.

But you know why I am telling this to you? Because popular is an illusion. It’s a made up phenomen that we create. And if girls deserve their popularity because they are nice and friendly and helpful like Chanie, then great. But if other girls are nasty and elitist, it’s perfectly possible to reduce them from their popularity status if nobody buys into it; same as it was possible to create popularity for a girl like Chana, however short-lived.

And when I meet people today, the idea of becoming friends with someone based on their popularity seems ridiculous. Although it seemed like a perfectly good reason when I was fifteen.

Oh well, I didn’t say I was too smart when I was fifteen.

Hey! Maybe that’s why I wasn’t popular!

(Nah, if I would have been smarter I would have totally dumped the popularity contest, even when I seemed to be winning…)

And if you are a popular girl, be like Chanie. Use it to help people. Then it may be worth something.

Originally published by Mishpacha’s Teen Pages