View from the North 40: Like first place in the also-ran bracket

Although the most significant contribution to what has kept my husband and I together for the past 200 years (rounded up) is lack of imagination about what else to with ourselves, we have a few other gimmicky tricks, too. One of the biggies is this: Sometimes you have to rise up to the occasion, leave your happy place and do something beyond the normal for your spouse.

May all the saints and dragon-slayers help us, but this weekend I have to be the trophy wife.

John’s class reunion is this weekend. All weekend. Which started Tuesday.

A group of classmates held the last organizational meeting, by which I mean drinking practice, and it ended with a text requesting a ride home. Don’t get me wrong — I am 100 percent in favor of being summoned to town to give that ride home rather than, say, to bail him out of jail or help scrape pieces of him off the pavement somewhere. He’s done the same for me. We rarely go anywhere, so the service is by no means overused, but it’s proven to be a healthy approach when needed.

Don’t take this wrong, but it was unfortunate that he was not “that drunk” — not wasted, blotto, on his ear, piggo, sloppy drunk. With that crippling hangover I would’ve been his plus-one sitting in the living room watching TV at a low volume for the weekend rather than out among humans.

But, no, he was a responsible person, so plus-one in public I go, even with this unsuccessful start: After getting the “save me from myself” ride request Tuesday, I got all the way in to the edge of town before I realized I was wearing my semi-nice shirt from work matched with my grungy chore shoes that undoubtedly smelled a like a corral, and a pair of sweats whose one redeeming quality is that they are long enough for my legs — otherwise they have all the style of early homelessness.

I stayed in the dark corner of the parking lot and texted John to come outside to meet me.

Thursday night they held a pre-reunion reunion gathering at another downtown establishment (cut me some slack here — I’m talking about adults who are way, way older than some of those legal-age kids in there ... and of course I mean older in a good way, for sure), but I smartly used this night as an opportunity for my own practice — social skills practice.

My clothing option was a tasteful ensemble centered on the theme of “not worn since last laundered.” I smelled fresh as a dryer sheet. I put on makeup for the first time in at least three years. And by that I mean I scraped my eyelid trying to use a dried up eyeliner pencil, then threw away a bottle of congealed goo that was once mascara and called it good. I did get my hair going in all the right directions without burning myself on a curling iron. Yeah, I rocked the basic prep-skills portion of the evening.

While at the gathering, slamming down glasses of water like icy frescas on Cinco de Mayo, I repaid all the warmth and generosity of those people who spoke with me by being on my best behavior. I am not an animal.

I stopped just shy of knocking one person over, backing into him, because no story is told well without big gestures and a full-body workout.

I helped myself to someone else’s popcorn without asking (which might sound bad, but it was movie-theater-style popcorn, so who doesn’t make like a boa constrictor eating a small water buffalo and unhinge their jaw to shovel in that tasty goodness).

I snorted once while laughing — it was so adorably loud three people turned to look.

I promptly forgot everybody’s names, some of their faces, too, which kept the conversations fresh.

And I swore colorfully at least a dozen times, three of which were f-bombs, and one of those while talking to a minister’s cousin (but I only mouthed the word that time, so it pretty much didn’t count).

Basically, I ruled the night.

Still, with two days of socializing left, I think I’ll step up my game tonight and Saturday by remembering to put on a bra.

(Yeah, that’ll class up the act at [email protected].)