reunions...

"do you remember a k.s.?"

"um, the name rings a bell, why?"

"oh, she remembers you. she went to high school here in orting, a grade beneath you."

"huh."

my mother has found someone else i went to school with. she works at the pharmacy in the safeway there in orting. and apparently she remembers me.

a phenomenon has been revealing itself to me slowly since i have moved back to the area that i left 15 years ago without a look back.

i believe that i have alluded to the fact that i did not really enjoy my childhood and pubescent years in orting. (see back to the old house) the town was like a giant clique, and me and mine did not fit in. plus, i was further made a misfit by the fact that i was a complete and utter nerd.

so i have figured that i couldn't have made much of an impression on anyone from school that i wasn't close friends with, or in some kind of organization with (i.e. track, cross-country, performing arts).

i'm half tempted to ask my mom if she described me as a scrawny, goofy kid with big glasses, or maybe as the kid who wore eyeliner (yes, i was the kid who wore eyeliner in my school. your school may have had a whole enclave of eyeliner-wearing punks and goths, i was the only one at my school, and it gave me a bit of notoriety at the time as you can imagine. or maybe you can't. who cares?)

k.s., it turned out, did not run track or cross-country, and now i am completely baffled as to how she might remember me. my wife says, "maybe she had a crush on you." i say, "might've been nice to have had some kind of clue while we were still in high school. i could've stood to have a date or two." so i decide to dig out my yearbooks to find out who she was. and i recognize her face, but can't remember ever having a conversation with her, or what kind of impression i would've made on her (other than the aforementioned eyeliner thing) that would've caused her to remember me 15 years later from a description made by my mom.

"well, she says to stop in sometime and say 'hi'."

"mkay"

since i have been back, though, and rekindled friendships with some of my old pals who i left in the lurch, so to speak, so many years ago, and have begun toddling around the old town again, i have run into people i went to high school with, who then seem genuinely happy to see me, and to catch up on what's going on, etc etc.

i can't fathom it, these people more or less ignored me in high school, and yet now, some years later, we catch up like we were old pals.

so of course i will stop in and say hi to k.s., and see what's been going on, and try to figure out why the hell she would still remember me.

but apparently i was a bigger fish in school than i initially figured myself to be.

or most likely, she confused me with someone else, and doesn't remember me at all.

darth sardonic