10 year High School Reunion (Part Deux)

At least, I THINK it was *MY* high school reunion.

First, so you don't think I'm a total loser and didn't make friends with anyone, I will tell you that I only went to this school my 11th and 12th grade years. AND we didn't even live in that city until 2 weeks before graduation. Lived 30 minutes away. (long story, don't ask. It's boring.) That said, my circle of friends was limited to a very few including those who had a car (as I didn't) so we could hang out after school and stuff, lol. And I had a serious boyfriend nearly the whole time, so I wasn't a'flirtin with the guys either. Our graduating class was HUGE. Like 750-800 or something. Class of '97 was the last class before they opened a new HS that cut our school in half (that was SO needed. We were so crowded it was ridiculous! My senior year they lengthened the time between classes because so many kids were late just trying to get through the traffic crunch in the halls. It was common for the "leader" of a group to make a path and all their friends would link on to each other's backpacks and follow through the mass. It was baaad.)

So anyway...

Dinner/program at local college. Hubby and I get there... I can't see anyone I know enough to even go up to them and say Hi. We walk past several tables with a few couples sitting at them to some empty tables. No seems to know anyone, so it's like you're in a restaurant with a bunch of people you don't know, yet you're going to have to ask to sit at their table. Best thing to do it get your own table, so at least you're already "there" and you're not the latecomer who has to "ask permission" to sit with you. We snag a empty table and sit.

And sit.

And sit.

Eric asks, "Why are we here if you don't know anyone?"

I say, "Shaddup. It was a BIG school (etc etc, see reasons above), and everyone has changed! I can't recognize hardly anyone." I was relieved to see that I wasn't the only one to have put on some "baby weight". (I don't know personally if they had kids, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, like I hope people give me!) But then there were way too many people who look even better than they did in HS (even if I didn't recognize them, lol)

Then I see someone, someone I hung out with the last few months of my senior year and part of the summer after and I even dated him for a month or so. He and his wife are walking towards us, and I'm glad to finally see someone I recognize enough that I'll wave and say hi, and not have to feel stupid hoping they remember who I am. I ask my husband if he minds if I invite them to join us (I'm being a courteous wife! I did date the guy for a little bit anyway...) He says no, so I'm about the raise my hand to wave and call his name when, "WHOOSH!" He does an about-face that leaves his wife still walking in our direction.

He's suddenly facing the window. I look at my husband, puzzled. I say, "Huh, I guess he didn't see me." Eric replies, "Well, how could he not? We're 10 feet away, and he was looking right at you when he turned."

Then, his cute wife whips her head around so fast I can hear vertebrae pop and she stares right into my eyes...then whips back at concussion speed.

"Are you kidding me?", I say to my hubby, who is now laughing. "Seriously, did you just see that?" "Oh yeah....I did, " and he's laaaaaaaaughing. "What did you do to the poor guy?"

Well Dang. I haven't a clue! Ok, so I broke up with him 10 years ago, and went out with one of his best friends the next week(for like a month...), but the key phrase there is "10 years ago". AND I thought we'd become friends after that. I wrote to him after he joined the army. He sent me flowers on my 18th birthday, we went to a Christmas concert together, all as FRIENDS. Eric and even I went to his missionary homecoming. That was 8 yrs ago, but I thought we'd left off as friends, or at least adults. I did see him on the news, returning from Iraq(they showed his wife and cute baby girl too!) then the next year, I saw them all at my pediatrician's office and waved then, but I didn't think he saw me. At least not until now...

I'm still obsessing a little over what I did to offend them, and my darling hubby keeps giggling at that so it's hard to forget. Eric tried to make me feel better a few days later (because as he's observed, I don't like it when someone doesn't like me, especially if there's no good reason!) by saying the guy has probably been blaming everything anything that went wrong in his marriage on me. Oh, Riiiiiight. Because I was just THAT importiant, ROFL!!! But I guess in some sick twisted way it was sweet for Eric to try to make me feel better anyhow!

I keep watching the door for my friend and her hubby to show (We've kept in touch, have couple's date night with them, and had actually been taking a digi photo class with her right before this). I saw only one or two people do that "OH MY GOSH! Scream hug giggle" thing. Mostly, I felt better knowing I wasn't the only one who looked like they didn't know anyone there from Adam.

Finally, my friend and her dh show, and I went to get them, so they could find us and our lonely table. I came up to them and squealed, "AIM-MEEEEE! It's so good to SEE you!"scream giggle hug! And I hugged her dh too for good measure "MIIIIKE! It's been such a long TIME!". They looked at me like I was a little crazy. Amy had dropped me off at home after our photo class 2 days before, and I'd texted her dh a picture of the very long lines in walmart where we were stuck a few weeks before that... Then they realized I was just being weird, so that was normal. And I told them I wanted to look like I knew someone here and make sure everyone knew it. So there. Perfect sense.

I'm leading them back, and as I get to the table, ready to show Eric that we do indeed know someone here who will actually talk to me, I turn around and they're gone. Oh. They're talking to the guy who found such an incredibly interesting view out the window that he stared at it so hard his wife had to turn around and see what *else* was interesting. Whatever.

Eric laughs at how my friend and I don't know anyone (yes, we've established that), and it's even funnier because her husband served his mission with the single gal who sat at the table with us. For a while there, he knew just as many people there as we did...and he wasn't from our class/school/city/county!

The night goes on...the food was decent. We saw another old buddy and his gorgeous wife. It was hard to find things to say to people I used to spend hours talking with nearly everyday in high school. Wow, life has changed.

When we got to the "program" part of the night, I moaned, because I knew there was going to be some mention of how many kids I had, I wasn't sure if they'd try to embarrass me or what (A friend told me when she went to their 10yr reunion with 5 kids they "awarded" them a box of condoms.). There was a dang survey right by the front door: How many countries have you visited (Is IDAHO another country?), How many years of college have you attended(me personally, or how many years did I hold down the fort while my hubby went? He started back up when I got pregnant with #3, and we now have 6. I think THAT counts too!), How many years have you been married? and how many rugrats, er, uh, kids do you have?

My scream/hug/giggle friend snickers at me, cuz she knows it too. We looked over the surveys. Most had 1 or 2 kids. A few had 3, and TWO had 4 kids.

Someone went to 20 countries, someone went to 8 years of college, someone was married for 10 years (Yup, lol), and I had the 6 kids. I got a huge tub of Laffy Taffy from Costco and lots of cheers and claps. Well that made all the *years* of extreme morning sickness worth it then ;)

Then we watched "The Senior Slide Show"...some lame slide show I don't think we even watched the first time around. It was so boring and grainy and even though our class had like 5 gazillion people, it was the SAME 12 girls OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Wow. Suddenly I remembered high school, lol. My friend and were able to pick out maybe 4 people we knew, and were friends with(to some degree), in like a 45 minute slide show. And they were shown 3-6 times apiece.

All in all, it was fun. Ironically, Friday in the park was better. But at least I got a night out with my hubby, and a tub of laffy taffy.

I'm looking forward to my "other" high school reunion in August. (All the kids I grew up with 1st-10th grade) I will definitely know more people. I could have walked into Wal-mart and recognized more people. And such is my life! ;)