Hello My Name Is
Hello my name is
Even before I got there, I hated it.
No one cared what our jobs were. What our kids looked like. If we married “that one girl you dated… oh what was her name?”
Becky. Her name was Becky. And yes we did. Unfortunately, she got the dog.
I’m not sure why I even considered coming to the reunion when I got the letter. Maybe it was because I was hoping that there was some old friend I was forgetting about. Or maybe that I would be able to see the people I hated with screwed up lives.
Or maybe it was because I was divorced and bored.
To start with, the idea behind this just pissed me off anyway. It wasn’t even a dinner. It was a cheap, uncatered, breakfast. And to eat? Doughnuts. Milk. Coffee. It was like they didn’t even want to try to get us excited. Like they knew.
And then there were these nametags we had to wear. This white sticker with our name on it, as if we wouldn’t be able to tell everyone apart. It may have been 20 years, but let me tell you, I recognized everyone. We didn’t need stickers to figure out no one had changed.
Naturally, there were few people I spoke to. And that was how I ended up at a table alone, with one glazed doughnut. No chocolate, no sprinkles.
Directly in my line of sight, however, was, in fact, a chocolate and sprinkled doughnut. It was held by none other than Macie Hampton. Even her name made me want to grit my teeth. She was always the bubbly cheerleader. Of course she went for the flavorful doughnut- the exciting one, if such a thing even existed. She actually smiled as she ate it. Her perfection was vomit inducing.
And ya know, it’s a good thing I didn’t go sit with Macie that day. If I had we might have hit it off or something. And then, 5 days later, when she committed suicide after she found out her husband was cheating on her, it might have really tore me up. This way I could be content and happy and ignorant.
No, the stupid nametags were a faint hope that someone in my graduating class had done something; had changed. Instead, the doughnuts were the real nametags. I had my plain one, and Macie had her sprinkles. Everything was typical.
No one cared what our jobs were. What our kids looked like. If we married “that one girl you dated… oh what was her name?”
Becky. Her name was Becky. And yes we did. Unfortunately, she got the dog.
I’m not sure why I even considered coming to the reunion when I got the letter. Maybe it was because I was hoping that there was some old friend I was forgetting about. Or maybe that I would be able to see the people I hated with screwed up lives.
Or maybe it was because I was divorced and bored.
To start with, the idea behind this just pissed me off anyway. It wasn’t even a dinner. It was a cheap, uncatered, breakfast. And to eat? Doughnuts. Milk. Coffee. It was like they didn’t even want to try to get us excited. Like they knew.
And then there were these nametags we had to wear. This white sticker with our name on it, as if we wouldn’t be able to tell everyone apart. It may have been 20 years, but let me tell you, I recognized everyone. We didn’t need stickers to figure out no one had changed.
Naturally, there were few people I spoke to. And that was how I ended up at a table alone, with one glazed doughnut. No chocolate, no sprinkles.
Directly in my line of sight, however, was, in fact, a chocolate and sprinkled doughnut. It was held by none other than Macie Hampton. Even her name made me want to grit my teeth. She was always the bubbly cheerleader. Of course she went for the flavorful doughnut- the exciting one, if such a thing even existed. She actually smiled as she ate it. Her perfection was vomit inducing.
And ya know, it’s a good thing I didn’t go sit with Macie that day. If I had we might have hit it off or something. And then, 5 days later, when she committed suicide after she found out her husband was cheating on her, it might have really tore me up. This way I could be content and happy and ignorant.
No, the stupid nametags were a faint hope that someone in my graduating class had done something; had changed. Instead, the doughnuts were the real nametags. I had my plain one, and Macie had her sprinkles. Everything was typical.