Tennessee

Jon and I have been watching this relatively new reality show on the WB called “High School Reunion,” and I hate to even admit this, but it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I watch it with my hands over my eyes and an emergency whiskey sitting an arm’s length away. I’m sure it’s not supposed to be scary, but my own ten-year high school reunion is later this year, and as I’ve mentioned to Sour Bob who was there in my AP English class when I wrote my final term paper on Joseph Smith and tried to prove through historical documents written by Mormons that the Mormon church was the only true church on earth, no amount of psychotherapy could prepare me for such a return to hell.

For the past couple of years I have had a recurring nightmare that goes like this: I receive a call from someone on the school board from my home town who says that because of a “glitch” in the system, everyone who graduated from my high school in 1993 has to repeat their senior year. It doesn’t matter that I have a college degree, and if I don’t go back and redo my senior year of high school, that college degree becomes null and void. I then begin screaming, usually outloud.

And in this nightmare, as in real life, it’s impossible to imagine a worse scenario. I would rather base jump off a two-story building than relive a single moment of high school. I’d much rather have that dream where you’re being chased by a crocodile as you run around in public naked but for half-socks.

Up until very recently it’s been easy to deny that I was ever the Heather who:
– once believed that Rush Limbaugh was a prophet of God.
– referred to Dan Quayle as “my man in Washington.”
– threw public hissy fits whenever a quiz or a paper came back with a 98 or 99 and not a perfect 100.
– saw Milli Vanilli in concert and believed they were actually singing.
– was reduced to fucking tears when I found out they actually weren’t.
– sang Bette Midler’s “The Rose” solo in front of 300 horrified fellow students.
– took The Cure very seriously.
– totally believed that “to be great is to be misunderstood.”
– frowned incessantly
– constantly told other people that they were being so immature.
– formed a “V” club with three fellow virgins, complete with secret handshake and ID card.
– wore combat boots because it was just so rebellious.
– confessed to my Bishop every time I kissed with tongue.
– said a prayer in my graduation speech because the evil ones were trying to take God out of the schools.
– when asked to submit a quote that said best how I wanted to be remembered chose, “Can’t keep my mind from the circling sky, tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I,” and thought, man, it doesn’t get any deeper than that.
– wore a padded bra
– stalked a certain boy so aggressively that he once spotted me spying on him from behind a tree in his front yard.
– truly believed that the election of Bill Clinton was a sign of the times as outlined in the Book of Revelations.

I could go on and on and perhaps talk about my one gigantic eyebrow or the nappy hair that was long enough to hit my waistline, but I think I’ve adequately illustrated why the majority of my graduating class might not be looking forward to the return of the grumpy, Book of Mormon-wielding vigilante.