Reunion

Going back home means, inevitably, running into former high school classmates. This is why you must always take care to look your best even if running to the grocery store. We're all heinous gossip hounds, myself indubitably included, and we pounce on any morsel of news like Karl Rove on inappropriate rhetorical devices. You don't want one of those bitches to catch sight of you balancing an armload of beef jerky in the local Albertsons so she can run back to her gaggle and announce that she saw Susan the other day, and you know, she's looking a little chunky these days; must be all the Velveeta she had in that cart.

I wasn't really expecting any encounters, though, when I visited my brother's bar as it's mostly a hangout for undocumented migrant workers and the women who love them. But turns out, the new girl he had to train that night? Well, Molly and I go back to Elementary. Molly's not one of those bitches, but Molly's had a tough few years since high school. She pulled up a stool and the guts, they were spilled rapidly, and in detail.

What Molly has been up to:
1. Married
2. Knocked Up (or probably, switch those)
3. Divorced
4. Cocaine addiction
5. Rehab
6. Alcohol addiction
7. Rehab
8. Hired by my brother
9. Son starting preschool

What Susan has been up to:
1. Shopping
2. Barbecuing every blessed weekend
3. Generally whooping up extended adolescence

This makes for an awkward conversation. I knew that any second, she might ask me what it is that I do, and then I'd have to perform the verbal gymnastics necessary to gracefully arc the conversation from cocaine benders to democracy promotion, all while Rico off to my right mimed masturbating motions in order to make my brother laugh. So really, can we all just take a moment and praise the Good Lord in heaven for Tom Cruise, the Blessed Saint of Harmonious Conversation Topics.