REpeat.. REturn…REtreat….REeunion…

It seems to me the prefix “re” means to do something over again.  You can repeat a statement.  Return something to Costco that you stood in the express lane…”700 items or less” for an hour to purchase, or in the case of the military who absolutely never use the phrase retreat, it just advancing in the other direction.

I recently found another “re” word that had an impact on me.  I went to a high school reunion.  In this case the “re” meant that we got to see people whom we had not seen in years. We got to see who was still around and talk about those who were not.  We whispered about those who had gone off the deep end in some way since we terrorized the city as teenagers.  Some had passed away at, for us at least, a much too early age.  Some had been married to “that person…you remember what they said about him/her when we were in school.”  Nobody thought it would work and they have been married fifty years.

This reunion was a lot of fun for me…not like that one several years ago when “the incident” happened.  I can’t mention any names here but there was a girl in high school that I had a case of the screaming scorchies for.  She never knew it. We never dated and hardly even spoke, but it didn’t matter.  In my fantasies, she was the One.

At a reunion several, well…many years ago I was sitting at a table with an old friend and my wife when he said, “There she is.”  I didn’t have to ask.  I knew who “she” was.  “She’s over by the bar.  Let’s go see her.”  He knew of my case of the hots for her in high school.  When I looked at the bar, my first thought was “Please dear God. Don’t let that be her.”  There was only one woman at the bar.  My friend grabbed my arm and led me to the bar where I found out that God, does in fact, have a sense of humor.  My friend called her name and she answered.  Not only that, he invited her to come sit at our table. I couldn’t speak so he did all the talking.

She took her drink (more about that later) and followed us to our table.  Once we got there, he asked my wife to dance.  “I’ll let you two catch up,” he said as he left me alone with my former dreamboat.  We sat in silence for a few minutes while she drank and I looked at her.  She had gained a LOT of weight, but most of it was muscle.  She looked like a lineman/linewoman for the Green Bay Packers.  She had a fresh buzz-cut and it looked like she had bleached her mustache so it hardly showed.  I knew this would probably be my only chance to speak to her so I took the plunge.

I poured my heart out to her.  I told her of my passion for her in high school.  She listened patiently as she drank from her long-neck bottle of Budweiser, occasionally flexing her arm as she did so. Was that a tattoo on her bicep that said “Death before Dishonor?”  I couldn’t read it to be sure.  After reliving those high school days and my broken heart, she took another drink, looked me dead in the eye and made her comment on by broken heart.  Her comment to my confession of my undying teenage love for her?  Two words I’ll never forget.  “No shit!”

Two words and she went back to the bar and out of my life forever.  No REpeat here.  I’ll never do that again. And I refuse to drink Budweiser .