Pukers and nose jobs and beer, oh my!

I’m finally sober.

I think.

I’m betting that the two people who puked aren’t. Maybe the girl who threw up at 8:30 p.m. Probably not the girl who was down on all fours in front of the toilet at 11.

I want to personally thank them for making my 15th high school reunion last night so memorable. There’s nothing quite like seeing one of the popular girls—one who looks like she does Pantene/ Crest White Strips / pilates commercials—hugging the bowl in her designer jeans as her friend brings her a puke bucket. I wish I hadn’t seen her wiping up her own mess and apologizing for being in the way. It kind of made her likeable.

Kind of.

The other puker? She sent out an email this morning saying how sorry she was for ruining everyone’s reunion. I wanted to write back, Oh honey, you enhanced it. Someone beat me to it.

Our class president had traded her striped tights and hot pink hair tips for a sunny disposition, a cardigan and jeans. She thoughtfully made name tags using our senior year yearbook picture. I actually had forgotten what mine looked like because many of my wonderful friends wrote “pearl necklace” all over it, to the point where my face was buried under ink. (That wasn’t my nickname gutter dwellers, I made the unfortunate mistake of wearing pearls that day and having an uncanny number of perverts for friends.)

Eric Rothbaum did not keep his sexy blonde curls; he was sporting a shaved head. And a gut. The boy I first kissed in eighth grade was also bald. I didn’t get close enough to his mouth to tell whether his nickname “wet sock” was still appropriate (as far as first kisses go, I so deserve a refund). His wife had too much to drink and started a fight with his best friend. Why do people bring their spouses to these events? The bar looked like a doctor’s waiting room: all those men, bored as hell, yawning as their wives reminisced about their favorite cheerleading poses.

(For the record, I was not a cheerleader. High school is tough enough without getting mooed at at football games. Besides, I was too busy shotgunning Golden Anniversary beers behind the band entrance before us marching band folk took to the field. Come on, you think I’m hot, don’t you?)

The food at the reunion looked wonderful but overdrinking and not eating worked so well for me at my wedding reception, I thought I’d give it another whirl. Apparently a lot of other people did that too because conversations morphed from polite inquiries—“Tell me more about your advanced accounting degree”—to loud postulations and pointing: “That wasn’t a deviated septum! That was a fucking nose job. And she’s still fat and ugly!”

Yes, things started to feel so familiar, I almost forgot 15 years had gone by. Until it was time to leave and a group of people said they were going to the casino—the one right next door to Mulletville.

Rip!

I’ve grown so accustomed to Mulletville being my unmagical kingdom I actually forgot that people come here on purpose. People from the outside world. People who knew the former me but don’t know Junior or Chuck or My Grown Up Life. When my brain tried to meld the two it exploded. Again.

Thankfully the puke bucket was still handy.

P.S. I rocked the Dutch Boy. Oooohh yeeeahhh.