Stilettos and hedgehogs

This past Saturday night my graduating class had our 25th high school reunion. (Yes, I'm really old enough to have graduated when both banana clips and Bananrama were in vogue.  At the same time.  Don't judge.)  In fact, one of my good friends from high school (who wasn't a good friend in high school, which just goes to show that once you leave the four years of social hell and structured class warfare we call secondary education and grow up it's amazing how much you find you have in common with your fellow refugees) suggested that I write a blog post about high school.  Intriguing idea.  Seriously though?  Call it angst or anxiety (having to face your peers when your only claim to fame is that your husband, not you, is the Zookeeper, and while he's been on TV and everyone knows and loves him, all you really contribute is to occasionally wash animal poop and food out of dishes, vacuum porcupine quills off the floor, and generally complain about everything) but the one memory that kept cropping up pretty much sums up my entire high school experience...and my entire life, for that matter.

Graduation week, we're all gathered in the bleachers in the gym to get the line up of our marching in order.  School colors were red and white, so most of the tassels were red and white, but the honors students got gold and came in first, followed by the rest, all partnered off and walking triumphantly by twos.  Now, back in the days before I lived in a zoo and had three daughters and lost my mind in the noise and confusion of constant bickering and lack of sleep otherwise known as mommy brain I used to be smart.  Not like Einstein smart, but I had a purty gold tassel for my cap, and I was an officer in NHS (National Honor Society) and even did a lot for NHS, so it wasn't like I was completely unknown or invisible or anything.  In fact, I was a major pain in the ass about a lot of stuff in school.  There was popular, and there was infamous.  Guess which category I was in?  Anyway, our class advisers list off everyone in order of entering starting with the honors kids, and then move on.  Except, oops, some one's name wasn't called.  At all.  Um, wait?  Times?  I know we haven't gotten final grades yet, but I'm pretty sure I have a swank gold tassel waiting to be used, and my name should have been on that list....So I'm sitting there, ears burning and flushing red from mortification at having been left out.  The wise thing to do would have been to wait until everyone had lined up, and let them notice there was someone sitting in the bleachers still.  The mature thing would have been to calmly approach one of the advisers and remind them that I existed.  And at 17, of course I was very mature and wise.  So in my infinite wisdom I stood up, all righteous indignation and embarrassed energy (cuz I'm such a shy, retiring person) and frantically waved my arms in the air hollering "hey, you forgot someone."  And, at 17 and 18, of course my classmates reacted with age appropriate maturity and wisdom...as in they laughed their asses off at me, making my humiliation almost complete.  Completion?  Came from having to walk in to graduation alone.  Why did I want to go to this reunion?

Oh, yeah...

I was really looking forward to this, because it meant an actual, honest to goodness night out with the zookeeper and other adults, which we hardly ever (read never) get to do on account of, you know, his running a zoo and working 24/7 fifty two weeks a year.  I even made a trek to a real mall about an hour away and spent three hours trying on every fricking dress in every fricking store in the entire fricking mall because they don't make dresses for 40 somethings who are short bodiced and long waisted and so if you want a dress it's either hoochie mama or granny underpants and I was about ready to just haul out the sewing machine and make my own goddamned dress because yes I have a closet full of clothes but this is a 25th reunion for Christ's sakes and of course it had to be just effing right since I don't really have a life to speak about happily shopping for a lovely new dress...

And then I completely forgot that our 11 month old German shepherd has been methodically eating my shoes for the last several months, so I didn't have the white strappy sandals I planned to wear with my new I Spent Way Too Much $$ on it Dress.  Well hell.  It's not like I can go barefoot, and a few trips to local stores that sell shoes gave slim pickin's at best.  And since my last shopping trip went so well that the idea of repeating it ranked right up there with contracting a form of flesh eating bacteria and slowly dying while drowning in a pool of my own body fluids...  

But wait!  There's that wonderful Al Gore invention, the INTERNET.  (Cue harps and angels here.)  I can go online and have the world of shoes at my feet!  Or for my feet, because naturally you wear shoes..nevermind.  I found so many that I liked with cheap shipping and at a reasonable price...if I wanted to wait two weeks to get them.  Oy.  Haven't these people heard of express shipping?  Don't they know that I waited until the last possible minute and 4-5 days of processing in addition to regular ground shipping does not, I repeat not fit into today's world of instant gratification?  I mean, I get the first cup of coffee before it stops dripping, and stop the microwave before the beep for crying out loud, and you can't just beam the dang shoes to me?  Grrr.

So I have to go to the online version of that local fav, Target, to find shoes and actually have them fricking arrive in time to actually wear them when I need to.  Here, this is what they look like:

Hey!  Those look white, don't they?  It even says white in the description.  Guess what?  They're ivory.  Bastards.

When you order something online, there's a little tab thingy that gives product descriptions.  Not a good idea to overlook this.  Why?  Because those shoes have 4" heels.  Which I would have known if I had read the details.  Details?  We don't need no steenkin' details.  Unless we want to be able to do something useful in our shoes.  Like, you know, walk.  I wear high heels on a regular basis (it's so much easier to be intimidating when you're tall says she who is only five three) but these are about an inch taller than what I'm used to, and that heel is pretty freaking thin.  Like trying to balance on a pencil.  Or better yet a match stick. This outta be good.

Here's something else you might not know.  When you live in a zoo and are raising three daughters, two of whom are constantly PMS and all of whom hate each other and proclaim it loudly and repeatedly to all and sundry...four children if you count the zookeeper who (like most men) drops his shorts on the floor in front of the empty laundry basket it is not unusual to by your wine by the box.  Boxed wine?  Has about half the alcohol content of bottled wine, which means you can drink a shitton of it and not get schnokered.  Ask me how I...scratch that.  Don't ask.

Anyway, finally the big night arrives, the zookeeper and I are decked out and ready to leave (1/2 hour "fashionably" late, and a whole 'nother story about what lipstick looks like, sigh.)  I'll leave out his back up shoes, since dress shoes make him feel like he's walking on land in flippers.  Suffice it to say that in case of emergency (and was there ever one) he had his idea of "dress" shoes in the car...the kind that have the toes all individually seperated out for you.  I wear stilettos, he wears Vibrams.  It's how we roll.  Only it wasn't exactly rolling I did when I didn't see a step down going outside for air after two?  three?  (I really wasn't counting) glasses of bottled not boxed wine and did my not so graceful version of the dance of the toy flutes trying to regain my balance on the stone terrace.  In front of about 20 people.  I stuck the landing though, and at least it wasn't on my ass.  Even the German judges would have given me a decent score for that one.  Seriously starting to hate these shoes about now, toe cleavage or not.

Other than almost falling on my kiester (I swear, it was that I missed a step in those stupid shoes, your honor, because I hadn't even had a Tanqueray and Tonic yet) the night was going well.  Like really well.  Like I got to play social butterfly and talk to a ton of people I hadn't seen in a long time  and generally have a great time well.  The zookeeper was even having a blast, since he knew at least half the people there (being relatively famous locally has it's perks) and loves to talk too...until about halfway through the night when he got a work related phone call and came to find me (on the terrace, smoking a cigar no less.)

Him:  "I have to go.  <A zoo employee> just called.  One of the hedeghogs has a bowel extrusion and I need to go try to put it back.  If that doesn't work, we'll probably have to take it to the emergency vet clinic."

Lovely.  My date night, the only one I'll probably get this year, and my date bails on me for this guy.

The African pigmey hedgehog.  Even 4" heels with toe cleavage can't compete with this little fella when his bowels are hanging out of his butt.  And I get it, I really do, but seriously?  Tonight of all nights?  Mental facepalm.  Because who else does this happen to, really?  One minute you're relaxing and having an honest to goodness party-time moment, and the next you're gettting picked up by an employee (yes, he left me the car and I got to stay and play) and racing off in your toe shoes to save a what?  A hedgehog.

"Other than that, Mrs. Zookeeper, how was the play?"

The rest of the night was swell.  Believe it or not, I'm pretty used to this kind of animals needing immediate attention thing.  And luckily I have some terrific friends who not only didn't laugh when I took my trip off the step, but who also made sure I still got to hang out and have fun.  And get home.  I'm pretty sure I gave everybody plenty to talk about, with the stilettos and the hedgehog.  Just another day in the life, I suppose, of the zookeeper's wife.