Graduating: Part I
For most people, the most memorable things about graduating have nothing to do with Graduation. I don’t remember much, as I was in shock throughout most of my ceremony. After four and a half years, three universities, four major-changes, four jobs, ten roommates, one internship (hastily procured the October before I graduated), three years in my sorority, two painstakingly compiled writing portfolios, a one-year stint as “the white girl” on an Indian dance team, and zero arrests, I had finally managed to trick enough of the right people into letting me graduate. I also managed to accumulate and subsequently sass my way out of $1,000 in campus parking tickets the week before I graduated. I can honestly say, I wasn’t 100% sure it was actually going to happen until my ass was in my seat waiting to hear my name called. Even then, I thought they might just shake my hand and give me a sleeve full of nothing.
I remember two things about Graduation. The first, is wishing someone had told me that the polyester gown was going to cause an unparalleled bout of back sweat.
The second is that I got to graduate with my best friend, who, despite the fact that we majored in opposite fields and that our names are half an alphabet apart, somehow ended up sitting right behind me at the ceremony. I was (barely) graduating a semester late, while she was graduating (with honors) a semester early. We graduated on a Friday evening in December with approximately zero people we knew, so it was nice to have her close.
Otherwise, the time between leaving my house to get to Graduation (the only alone time I’d had in 48 hours) and sitting down to dinner afterwards, is a tangled whir. I came to just as I was ordering me a glass of prosecco, myself, a margarita, and I, a just-for-show glass of water at the restaurant bar. What happened next has been, and will, I suspect, ever remain a topic of debate throughout the ages.
As I made my attempt to drift swiftly back into unconsciousness, I became aware of some uncomfortable rustlings in my dinner group, and when we took our seats at the dinner table, I was confused and displeased to find my boyfriend sitting two seats down, between my grandfather and my friend, instead of directly to my right, where one (I) would expect him to sit. Odd. Must be the back sweat. A female friend of mine who had joined us for dinner sat next to me instead, looking sick. What? What’s wrong? What happened? Why are you sitting here? What’s the problem? What? What? What? What? What? What? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? what. WHAT?! what? TELL ME. Most of that conversation happened via eye contact, but when the margarita/prosecco combo started getting loud, she was finally forced to inform me that, as we were walking as a group from the bar to our table, my grandfather— ever-so-gently, and with all the care in the world— “tickled” her ass.
Uh, what? No, I mean, of course he did. Wait. WHAT? GRANDPA, WHAT THE FUCK?
Let me take this opportunity to give you the breakdown on Grandpa “Sammie” Holden. Sammie’s given name was Alton before he legally changed it to his nickname, Sammie, which, for no reason or rhyme, he opted to spell with an “-ie,” like any respectable woman would. He is a man of many words and few listeners and was, at this point in the trip, already standing in a pretty deep proverbial hole.
The family train had arrived the evening before, carrying Sammie, Grandma Betty Jo, and my mom and dad. My grandmother had sweetly saved her timeshare points for the occasion, affording the group a condo off of Briley Parkway, an area I do not frequent, yet was still expected to familiarize myself with every square mile of. As a result of my ignorance, we ended up at a restaurant called The Spotted Whale Cock, or some variant thereof… the Polka Dotted Whale Cocksman? Spots and dots and whales and dicks. That’s where I found myself the night before I graduated college. Sammie shone like a star in his blood-stained, 1980 windbreaker vest, which he paired fearlessly with his finest, once-white, pit stained turtle neck. Over the course of dinner, Sammie mused about life’s great complexities, like school district re-zoning in my hometown, and how, in order for a “Mahzlum” to go to Heaven, “their Bible, the Karen” dictates that he must kill one American. Annoyed, and sickeningly offended, I attempted to draw his attention to the fact that there are more “mahzlums” in the world than Americans, so if that were true we’d all be dead, and what about “mahzlums” who are American, NOT TO MENTION, GRANDPA, that America didn’t exist when the “Karen” came into existence, and also, stop talking. To all of which he replied with some unintelligible quip about not knowing everything because I have a college degree, and remained in a silent pout for the rest of the meal. He was revived, however, when we returned to the condo to engage in a family movie activity (there’s a first for everything). As my grandmother was in the kitchen making popcorn, she lost her footing, and stumbled into the open pantry door, slamming it shut. Instead of waddling into the kitchen to check on his wife of a hundred years, he kept his seat, but mustered enough energy to yell from the living room, “HEY! When you get a chance, slam that door.”
All of this to say, that upon the realization that he had sexually harassed my dinner guest, I was all set and ready to slam his face into his plate of calamari. Some members of my family insist he was trying to guide her to the table in a gentlemanly fashion, toddled, missed her lower back and grazed her posterior. But, I think the old man recognized and seized an opportunity to experience happiness that would probably never pass his way again. The only thing that would’ve made it more obvious is if he had screamed “YOLO!” before he went in for the kill.
END of PART I
