The Reunion

So yesterday I left you hanging and that’s exactly what we were doing. We stopped right in the middle of main street in Fairview and my sweetie and I both jumped out while the Drama Queen moved to the driver’s seat. We made our way quickly to the dance hall.

We were only about 10 minutes late, but as we pulled open the double doors, it was obvious that everyone was seated and already enjoying dinner. Of course we had to walk all the way across the room with everyone looking at us. Thankfully, my sweetie’s best high school friend, Tom, who we hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years jumped up and welcomed us. Unfortunately, his table was already full….and so were all the others.

So we walked over to the buffet table and stood there until someone insisted on taking our picture. That’s when she confided to us that the tables had been set for 8 people each but it was too crowded so they removed a place setting from each table and now there was not a single spot for two people to sit together.

My sweetie went searching for plates while I stood awkwardly by myself at the buffet line. He plastered on a smile as he handed me my plate and promised in a whisper that they were “fixing” it. We slowly filled our plates and sure enough, by the time we were done they had found a place for us to sit at one of the tables.

I was a little surprised that I didn’t seem to know anyone even though my own hometown was only 14 miles away. We listened to people talk and occasionally my sweetie offered a comment or memory. As soon as we were finished with our food, we excused ourselves and carried our chairs over to Tom’s table.

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough as we reacquainted ourselves with Tom and met his wife. At some point they rounded up all of the classmates and had them pose for a picture. They promised to put it on facebook, but we haven’t been able to find it yet.

When that ordeal was over, my sweetie asked me to send the Drama Queen a text and ask her to pick us up. The ever-obedient wife, I tapped it out immediately. Less than 10 minutes later, the Drama Queen responded with, “I’m chillin’ in the parking lot.” Unfortunately, my sweetie was now standing with about 5 other guys and they were having a rather spirited conversation.

Tom’s wife and I chatted for about 30 minutes before the Drama Queen sent me another text. She was obviously getting tired of waiting. About 30 seconds later, the Dog Walker sent me a text from Grandma’s house. Baby Doll was inconsolable. Thankfully, my sweetie’s little jam session broke up right about then and we were able to make a smooth get-away.

When we arrived at Grandma’s, I jumped from the van and hurried to the front door. But Baby Doll was sitting on the floor, calmly chewing on a piece of taffy. Another false alarm! Since it was a two-hour ride home, I decided to give her some milk anyway.

We hit the road about 9:30 and headed for home. It was fun and interesting listening to my sweetie talk about kids he hadn’t seen for 30 years (although none of them were kids any more). When we got home, he pulled out his old yearbook and we talked about all the people who hadn’t attended the reunion and speculated about why they might have stayed away. We discussed his friends who had divorced or passed away. Those who were successful and those who weren’t. Their kids, their grandkids, their jobs, their trophy wives...It was well after 1:00 AM when he finally headed up to bed and I sat down to write my post. So today I asked him what he wanted me to say about the reunion and he said, “I don’t care, I’m over it.” Really?!