Magnolias & Moonpies

Ugh! I keep getting e-mail about my 20th class reunion. Some of my classmates - I graduated with about 600 - have created a web site dedicated to our class reunion. I have to admit, the web site is pretty neat. I spent almost an hour browsing through the names and pictures and profiles - I hardly recognized any of them. I don't think I even knew half of those people in high school. I looked through the photo albums and found pictures of both high school boyfriends. There was even one of me - weird. Of all the people in my graduating class, only 50 or so have confirmed, a handful have regretfully declined, and the rest, I suppose, are hiding in some remote area on the planet - smart.

Call me crazy, but I've decided not to make the six-hour trek to my hometown - Ft. Walton Beach - with my husband and child this summer to spend the weekend with a bunch of strangers who just so happened to graduate the same year that I did from the same high school that I did. Yes, I realize that my hometown is on the beach . . . so what? Why would I want to pay $162 to hang out with a bunch of people that I didn't hang out with in high school?

Besides, I went to the 10th - it blew chunks!

I so looked forward to meeting up with all my friends from high school, seeing old boyfriends, laughing, catching up on good times . . .

Yeah, not what happened.

The first night we met at a local bar. It was summer (of course) and hot and humid (naturally), but the bar had NO air conditioning whatsoever. And there was not a cold drink to be had in that god forsaken place. I mean, the "ice water" consisted of a small, white plastic cup with a beer logo imprinted on the side filled with warm tap water and two half-melted slivers of ice that became one with the other elements in that cup within mere seconds of taking the first sip. (My hands and feet are swelling just thinking about it!)

Those who were there early had obviously been to the bar many times in search of the one cold drink and hadn't yet given up hope in finding it. As I walked through the throng of drunken high school wannabes to begin my quest of the one cold drink, I was stopped by one of my classmates - the one who tried to steal my boyfriend AND my best friend in the same year (girls don't forget these things).

She wanted to catch up on old times, as though they were such wonderful memories worth rehashing. She talked of similar acquaintances, and teachers, and colleges, and careers - bor-ing. As she rambled on about people and places I cared nothing about, I envisioned an entirely different conversation that went something like this:

ME: Hey! Remember the time that you accidentally dropped that note to my boyfriend in my locker because you though it was his locker, but it wasn't, and you told him how much you loved him and wanted to "be" with him - in the Biblical way - and then asked him to break up with me so that he could be yours forever?

HER: Uh . . .

ME: And remember the time that you tried to turn my best friend against me and bribed her with tickets to college football games and wild, high school parties and then she realized what you were doing - because I told her what you were doing - and she told you that she would be your friend, but that I was her best friend, and then you got mad at her and cut up all of her school pictures into teeny-tiny pieces and put them in an envelope and sent your cousin to her house with that envelope and a paper sack filled with dog crap, and he put the envelope in her mailbox and threw the paper sack on her front door, and then you called her and told her she needed to check her mail?

HER: Well, I . . . uh . . .

ME: That's what I thought. Guess we're done catchin' up!

Reunions. Bleh!

So, my friend Rachel, who would never try to steal my boyfriend or throw dog crap on my front door, has sent me my very first meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences.

5. Tag 5 people.

Okay. Those of you who know me know that I love, love, love picture books. Since they don't even have 50 pages, I grabbed the first book next to my pile of Olivia books - Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, but page 125 only has four sentences. Then I grabbed the second closest book with enough pages - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. And lo and behold!page 125 is a picture of the pants with a single quote from Mario Andretti (I kid you not! I couldn't make this up if I tried.). Third time's a charm! And the winner - God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Conner Browne. I haven't read this yet - it's in my To-Read pile.

So, here goes:

Page 125, fifth sentence ff:

"But, as I was saying way back there, we were having a girls' gathering, and someone was getting out the bowls for the Fritos, someone was putting ice in the glasses, and I was making Chocolate Stuff, naturally, and someone else was making Armadillo Dip. Only one in our company had been sitting idle this entire time, holding up her end in the chatting but not doing any real work - lolling, as it were - and by and by, she asked if she couldn't do something to help. I surveyed the work at hand and suggested that she might want to chop the onions for the Armadillo Dip. She said okay, got up lazily from her perch at the kitchen table, looked sort of far-off, and then she said, to no one in particular, 'I guess I should wash my hands first, I just had sex an hour ago,' just as casual as you please."

I know I added an extra line, but it was the best one! Besides, without it, the previous lines would've been quite uninteresting, and anyone who's ever read any of Jill Conner Browne's Sweet Potato Queens books knows that they're far from boring! I have to add that I'm currently listening to Rick Springfield's "Love Somebody" as I type this.

Oh, the irony!