Dread Val Walking

Today was graduation. It was on Friday night forever, but this year we switched it up. Listen to me, acting like I have input. That'll be the day! I only have a year to insinuate myself with the power brokers. Guess I'd better get on the stick.

I may not have mentioned it here, but our educational establishment has the archaic habit of requiring the faculty to don long black robes and march in two by two and sit behind the podium, facing the graduates. Let the record show that Val is Mrs. Thevictorian, not Mr. Chips. She has no desire to be on display for the entire ceremony. In fact, Val has an aversion to this spectacle. But that's how it is. That's how it's always been, and how it's always going to be.

Last night, I woke up twice, drenched in sweat, heart racing, dreading this upcoming event. We have to get there a couple of hours before the start time, or there is no parking. Then we wait. And wait. Until it's time to line up in the hall and stand around for a half hour. Some years I've come down with a full-blown panic attack as we snaked our way down the long, long hallway and made the turn through the cafeteria, waiting, waiting, waiting to descend the stairs to the gym floor, in front of a packed house, standing three deep at the rail. Not a fond memory. Once I start the walk down between the rows of standing almost-graduates, I'm fine. It's that line-up and wait that frays my nerves. I feel trapped. Like I can't get out of line or make a scene by possibly dying. Once I'm walking toward the chairs behind the podium, I know that I could just keep walking out past the band room and out of the building. Nobody would come after me.

Last year, I evaded this event by being on my near-death bed in Missouri Baptist Hospital with multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms. I don't recommend that tactic. So, not only was I coming back after a red-shirt year, but I discovered that life had gone on without me! I had a different walk-in partner than the one I've had for fifteen years. AND I was in the other line, which curved the other way, necessitating a different escape route.

Oh, dear. If only I had know the extent of differentness that this year's ceremony was to be fraught with, I might have faked an embolism. The robes were different, with our Master's wings sweeping almost to the floor, the arm-openings very tiny, with hardly any room in those narrow wing-tubes to store our hard candy and phones and tissues. I swear, in the old robe sleeves, I carried a water bottle one year. And two cold packs another, when I feared I might succumb to heatstroke. The band had set up way closer to our entrance onto the gym floor, so we had to dodge the xylophone. As circumstance would have it, the Pomp was not as loud and majestic as years past. In fact, a different recessional altogether played us out. My new seat situated me behind a fat bald head, so that I had to lean to see the graduates grabbing diplomas, the baby picture powerpoint, and the valedictory and salutatory speeches. AND nobody cleared the spectators off the twenty-something steps for our grand exit, so it was like running a gauntlet.

Hick was not at all sympathetic to my plight. "I don't know why you're so worried," said the man who would be running around Goodwill and car lots and flea markets while I was enduring four-and-a-half of the most unpleasant hours of my life. "Just relax. Take a shot of whiskey."

"I'm so sure I'm going to do that just before driving to the graduation ceremony. Or in the school building before the processional."

"Go have a sip of that moonshine. It has apple flavor in it."

"You're not getting the point."

"Wine, then. You can't smell wine on your breath. It's like grape juice."

"I am NOT drinking before the graduation ceremony."

"You should ask your doctor for a pill if you're nervous."

"Oh, yeah. Let's see. It's 11:10 on a Sunday morning. I'm leaving here at 11:30. I'm so sure my doctor can give me a pill in that amount of time."

"Well, then, just relax. I don't know why you get all worked up."

"Aren't you ever afraid of anything?"

"No. Just heights. And all I have to do is back away from the edge, and I'm fine."

"I can hardly back away from the edge of the graduation ceremony. If you get a phone call, it will mean I have collapsed."

"Oh. Well. Have a good time. Be careful."

Let the record show that this year's festivities lasted one hour and twenty minutes, for 61 graduates. We are usually out in less than an hour. Also, let the record show that the temperature was just slightly cooler than the pit reserved for the most hard-core dwellers of not-heaven. No wonder those folks want ice water! And let the record further show that, after twenty minutes in line, saying, "I can't wait until we get to our seats, so we will have a program to use for a fan," we marched out to our seats and found them as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

It is now 8:30 p.m., and my core temperature has almost returned to normal.

One. More. Year.