Graduation: what not to bring

Spoiler: any tools of enjoyment

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Five of us are in the car driving to the uninspired arena where my daughter’s High School graduation will be taking place with underfunded public high school level pomp and circumstance. Steve is driving with H next to him. My mother in law and I share the back seat, and theoretically my 16 year old son is sitting behind me but we haven’t heard a word from him all trip. My daughter’s green polyester gown already has threads poking through the shitty seams and I keep myself from pulling them free for fear of unraveling. The gown and also myself. She is holding her tastefully decorated cap in her lap.(Last minute decision, school considered banning decoration because…who knows) We have a sheaf of poorly kerned graduation tickets on the console and the $10 bill (only cash accepted) for the parking. The back of the tickets have a list of prohibited items. No frisbees, or balloons, or illegal drugs. “How are we going to have any fun?” asks my son.

Everyone but me seems to know what a Vuvuzela is (not a body part guess again) but I won’t get to see one today because…prohibited.

A completely black tinted Charger cuts us off from the right lane and because I have somehow become a person who profiles and I hissing at Steve from the seat behind him. “Let him go.” There were reports of a woman getting shot at a four way stop for waving another car forward. It was on the news. My 16 year old (and maybe the rest of us?) don’t trust traditional media but I have internalized this story. So Steve is not quite flicking off the Charger it’s that ‘what the hell’ gesture that looks like you are halfheartedly throwing confetti.(Which he won’t be allowed to do because confetti is prohibited.) “Stop it.” I tell him.

We have survived the incident with the Charger and I have begun to collect myself (but not my belongings because I can’t have a bag or water.) We are getting close to the venue (a college none of us has been to or will go to after today (I think)), stopped at a light while H and I try to decipher the last minute instructions.

I look up from trying to locate lot 314 on the tiny map in time to see a generic SUV cut through a very tight space in the lane to the left of us and continue into our lane directly into the side of our car. She couldn’t have been going more than 15 miles an hour but the crash has that beat of silence and banging crunch that only someone who is as bad a driver as I am can recognize.

No one is hurt but, almost as terrifying, we are late for graduation drop off. H, my MIL and I jump out of the car. I toss car parts into the back seat and leave Steve and L to figure this shit out. At this point L has stopped using his phone and become interesting in what is going on.

I have already written more about my kids than I planned to so let me just tell you that various family members were shaken (yet to be stirred cause the ceremony had not yet begun.) Turns out the driver has no insurance (don’t think that’s legal..) an expired plate and registration. She also has alcohol in her glove box. On another day we might have called the police but we were in a hurry. So lots of photos and pleas from her about her rare blood type, cheating husband and general worthlessness (as reported by her) as well as driver’s side doors that are completely smashed in are our keepsakes from the drive.

Programs with misspelled names in hand we are seated in front of people enjoying sport venue nachos and next to a group with T shirts printed with their graduates face and cut outs of said face mounted on popsicle sticks (Guess “sticks and poles” as prohibited by our tickets does not include popsicle sticks which seems fair because they are found either encased in frozen sugar slurry or in a plastic box surrounded by mostly dead Crayola markers.)

There is a long wait. Then the grads walk in to the high school band playing Pomp and Circumstance. I am crying. Crying to a High School band. We have chosen the wrong side of the stadium and even with my oft-forgotten glasses digging into my ears H is just a speck. Thinking about her as just a speck in a crowd of crappy gowns is making it even worse.

She is one to me and one of many here and next year and maybe forever and what does the love of a parent really count for anyways. And then the speakers start and on the video score board they show the three chairs filled with flowers and capped with faces whose caps are imaginary. These are the kids in the class of 2023 who died before they could graduate. And their families sitting behind them and I am suddenly very glad that the school decided to have 12 student speakers all of whom are competing for most cliches in a speech. It is a tight race. I have pulled myself together enough to laugh when the speaker who is using Toy Story as a metaphor for high school reveals the ending and my son looks at me with one raised eyebrow and says with his typical excellent timing: “spoiler.”

There are various technical difficulties with the sound system and weird pauses as people take the stage and the girl who pushed the girl in front of her off the choir riser. The videographer (videos on sale for only $30) seems to choose the most bored looking parents to focus on in the audience. I had expected to be one of them. But instead I am here celebrating with silent sobs instead of airhorns or cowbells or even a vuvuzela.

As they recess to the off tempo band they are single file and I see her, tall, blond, stoic.

I’m glad tears are not prohibited.

1. Steve says it is going to take six months to get the car fixed. I will not cry at that but WTF

2. I know you have been wondering. Here is a vuvuzela:

Google tells me that they are usually plastic but this photo had more pomp.