School Reunions Are Better With a New Bra

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Just went to my high school reunion. Seems like we graduated only yesterday and a million years ago at the same time.

At Moose Megantic High, there’s not enough people in one class to make for much of a party. So every summer, third weekend in July, it’s an all years reunion, though most people only come when it’s a big year. You know, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, and so forth. I’m in the “and so forth” category. I missed our last big reunion. At my niece Carolyn’s wedding in Massachusetts, I think. So it’d been ten years since I’d seen everyone.

We had a bigger class than most, with just shy of twenty kids. And not all of ‘em stayed in Mahoosuc Mills, if you can believe it. Charlie was a couple years ahead of me. He had a real small class. As he likes to say, “I graduated third in my class. ‘Course there were only six of us!”

We had a cookout Friday night with just our class and spouses. There was a golf get-together during the day on Saturday, and then the big shin-dig up to Sky Lodge on that evening.

I went into the thing with my usual good attitude, curious to see folks I hadn’t seen in awhile, and armed with a mani-pedi, two new dresses, and a new bra. Just love the bra! Went to Victoria’s Secret and actually found a sales girl who had a little meat on her and didn’t look like she was just hatched! It’s hard to expose your underarm flab to a size 2 who looks like she’s still in Junior High.

While I was at Victoria’s Secret, I tried on one of them spanky slips. “Shapewear,” they call it. Sausage casing is what I call it. Holy cow! Once I managed to wiggle into it (no small feat), I couldn’t hardly walk in the darn thing! Couldn’t breath in it, either. And, to my surprise, I discovered, couldn’t get out of it. That got me giggling. My giggling turned to laughing, that nervous, uncontrollable laughter. Before you know it, I’m kind of hyperventilating. Really! My life started to flash before my eyes. You remember that board game, Clue, don’t you? Well, instead of Colonel Mustard in the library with the candle stick. How about Ida LeClair in the dressing room with the spanky? Finally, I had to press the panic button to have my sales girl come and help me out of it. Jesum Crow!

Anyways, once I finally extricated myself, I decided, you know what? I think I’ll pass on the shapewear. It was gearing up to be a scorcher of a weekend, so I decided to go with a different stategy: distract them with cleavage. Besides, my new dresses are kind of forgiving around the tummy. Thanks goodness, ‘cause I never did lose those extra twenty pounds. But I digress.

I’m pleased to report it was a great reunion! I really enjoyed catching up with folks, hearing about their lives. For the most part, everyone seemed happy and relatively healthy. Age is a great equalizer, isn’t it? You lose parents, spouses, even children. Good stuff happens, and not so good stuff. Your kids finally leave home and you get to rediscover who you are. The years kind of rub off the shiny, new-penny finish, and what you end up with is a patina that’s deeper and more interesting. You become more yourself, I think.

In short, my high school reunion was as uplifting as my new bra!

That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!

(Listen to Ida's podcast by clicking here [2])