This Shit Is Bananas

I needed the vacation. Ohio is so relaxing. I arrived to a home cooked meal on Friday night, which was probably my first in two or so months. My mom called me while I was still at the airport in New York to ask what I wanted for dinner and I replied with much desperation, "It doesn't matter. Anything with mashed potatoes!" My flight was overbooked, but for once something went right and I was able to muscle my way onboard. In retrospect I should have taken the free ticket and gone later, but the weekend was going to be short anyway and I didn't really want to waste my day in the US Air terminal at LaGuardia.

I went out to a pub on Friday night and came home to fall asleep pretty early. When I woke up on Saturday I ate about a half a pound of dark chocolate peanut butter cups and then got a piano lesson from my sister (two instruments are better than one I figure, and I hate looking at a piano like it is a piece of the space station). I spent most of Saturday working in the yard, which was wonderful beyond words. You really have to go to Ohio in the spring to appreciate how great the air smells, how the wind feels, how the trees sound. It was late afternoon in May but the sun warmed me like it was July. We have this enormous plum tree in my front yard, and it was the only thing I worked on all day, pruning its branches and trying to go as slow as I possibly could. It was the nicest afternoon I have had in a long time. The evening was . . . bananas.

I was no where near ready to go when our predetermined designated driver for the night showed up in the driveway. I sincerely wanted to just throw on some clothes and go, but for some reason the shirt I had balled up in my suitcase was all wrinkly, and the pants were . . . bananas. So I threw open my bedroom window, naked, and yelled out to my mom in the yard.

"MOM! Can you run around front and tell Meredith I will be ready in ONE MINUTE?"

A half hour later we were on our way. We got lost and passed it twice, and when we finally arrived at the restaurant that was hosting our five-year (and in what could have been a hilarious episode in cross-generational awkwardness, someone else's 50-year) reunion we were a bit surprised at how few people showed up. I wasn't expecting much, in fact I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting from a high school reunion in the first place, but this was definitely not it. But, booze in hand, I chatted up a storm. And it was good fun. Not what I expected, but good fun. And all night long the DJ was telling me that this shit was bananas, reminding me how to spell it on several occasions. In case you were wondering: b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

For most of the night, the show I found the most wildly entertaining was the one going on in my head. It's a rude awakening when you run across people you went to high school with: here is a collection of childish assholes who are totally out of their element. We are all 23 now, most of us with college degrees, many of us with some very adult sounding things on our resumes. So what do two childish assholes say to each other when it's no longer socially acceptable to be childish or, when not wearing a suit, an asshole? I ran several experiments.

"JJ! It's so good to see you!"

And I'm thinking, "It is? In what way? I don't remember ever talking to you in my life. What could possibly be good about seeing someone you didn't know existed till you read my name tag? Are you aware that I forgot your name too, and that these name tags were a damn good idea?"

But all that came out as, "You too! You look great!"

Bananas.