Reunions

In approximately 6 weeks I will be attending a reunion of sorts at my collegiate Alma mater. Naturally I'm thrilled to visit the campus, though my overwhelming emotion surrounding the trip is one of anticipatory nastiness. I mean let's just be real here a minute. I don't care how these folks have been, I care how fat they got. In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter to me that the person who annoyed me with every breath she drew is finding success in her career. It does, however, concern me a great deal that she's making copies in a doctor's office for minimum wage.

While I realize this type of behavior is considered petty and unbecoming in polite society, that these are the feeling of which no descent person speaks out loud, I would like to challenge that notion on the basis of it being simple human nature. The urge to see the girl who pranced around in midriff tops and mini skirts being the apple of every guy's eye, now wearing a double-digit pant size is a completely natural reaction and one for which I feel no shame. This urge lives in that same dark place that makes it impossible not to want to check out your guy's ex, just to make sure you're prettier and/or thinner than she. You can't blame yourself for feeling such urges, for they are simply out of your control. It is survival of the fittest, after all, and if you're not the fittest you'd best find some reason she's not either!

Naturally, I have begun taking the steps necessary to ensure that while shit may be talked behind my back, it will be that of jealousy and not that I don't look g-o-o-d. Since I only have 6 weeks, I must take a rather strict approach to readying myself for public slaughter. This morning I stopped a Girl Scout Cookie just moments from my lips, and yesterday found me unable to finish my entire bottle of champagne, stopping short at a mere 5 Mimosa's. My routine now includes slathering myself with tinted moisturizer and if that doesn't work, I have an appointment next week at the tanning bed. Don't start with me about melanoma, I have seriously fat arms to shade and you know tan flab is better than white flab without exception.

Wardrobe being another very serious consideration, I have already scoured my over-stuffed closest and declared not a single item fit for the fabulocity I must project. There are but a few dollars I can squeak out of my Visa, and yet in case of such an emergency I must consider opening a new card. What's a little extra debt when faced with the opportunity to evoke the ire of all the formerly-hot fatties in their JC Penny Best, while you strut along in your designer duds, as if $300 isn't too much for a top you'll wear once. Nevermind that the shoes, belt and handbag are all borrowed - possession is 9/10ths of the law, is it not?

For in the end, it's not the memories you shared, the good times you had, or the lessons your learned that draws you to a reunion; it's the unmitigated desire to have aged better (and of course thinner) than the rest. You can spend your time trying to be a better person or you can simply look like one. The former, is far more time consuming and in the end, you can hardly tell the difference!