The dreaded running into a former high school classmate’s mother…

You know the one, the classmate who had to get the highest score/best grade all the time or life just wouldn’t be worth living. The poor kid groomed to put others down anyway they can no matter how trivial just so they can feed their vortex of low self-esteem. Then you run into former classmate’s Mom at some place hopelessly innocent place like the drycleaners, grocery store or dentist and then you are trapped wondering what possible nasty thing you did to deserve the barrage of bragging. On the plus side, the Mom is too busy spouting off than to ask nosy questions about your own adult life that you would like to keep quiet. Nothing motivates privacy like a busybody asking questions with semi-automatic like speed. Smiling civilly you try to ask polite but safe questions and ultimately you are amused by aforementioned parent’s need to flaunt everything but a paycheck stub. And as you listen about how stressed out former classmate it (because God knows, we must equate success with stress) all you can think is wow. I am so glad that is not me, still striving for perfection—a race down a narrow lightless tunnel with no end. Ah well, it’s amazing how talking with someone five minutes can take you back ten years.