Mochila y Mas

Hotel thermostats are a total lie. I believe someone is conducting some sort of scientific experiment on temperature and the placebo-effect. The thermostat in my room has been set at 60, and it is merely pleasant. It is not cold. It is not even chilly. My dear, sweet mom keeps the thermostat at her house at 72, and her visitors are forced to wear mittens and scarves while inside. How can I freeze at 72 and yet be sockless and loving it at 60? The hotel industry is obviously trying to skimp on their AC bill by fooling its guests into thinking it's colder in their rooms than it actually is.

I've got my eye on you, Red Roof Inn.

I'm all about signs. (Notice I said signs, not Signs, the popular film about crop circles, aliens, and baseball bats.) The signs I go for are the ones that tell you whether to buy those jeans you have your eye on at the Gap. I play a little game. If I find something I like, I leave the store without buying it; then, if it's still there when I come back (minutes, hours, days) later, it was obviously meant to be. Jesus wants me to have those jeans. That's my kind of sign.

For the past few months (years?), I've been debating whether to attend my 10-year high school reunion. Before LongDiv took off for London, it was pretty much decided; we would go, spouses in tow. If you knew us in high school, you knew us. Both of us. We were rarely apart. A teacher once mistakenly combined our names into one mega-name. We thought it was hilarious, but it was probably how most people saw us.

So now that LD can't go, I have a dilemma. To reunite or not to reunite. I've gone back and forth, without coming to a decision. How fitting is it, then, that days before the reunion, I am sent on business to a location slightly south of the body of Christ. The only other time I have ever been to Corpus Christi was my senior year of high school with none other than Long Division.

We didn't want to go to Corpus, but we had such superb secretarial skills that there was nothing we could do about it. We were to represent our school at the state competition of the Business Professionals of America. We even had to buy suits. We were that good.

While in Corpus, we did everything we could to separate ourselves from the other Business Professionals of America. We sat by ourselves at meals. We refused to attend the formal dance held on the USS Lexington (instead we stayed in our room and watched Showgirls, featuring everyone's favorite "Hot Mama"). We asked various hotel personnel whether Selena had died in the hotel or not (okay, maybe that was just me, but still, LongDiv didn't stop me). It's no wonder someone tried to get us in trouble by sending shrimp cocktail to our room.

Driving through Corpus Christi today, I couldn't help but wonder if this was a sign that I should go to the reunion. Memories of senior year bombarded me while I drove. But at the same time, it became clear just how pointless it would be to attend the reunion without the Div. Sure I could report back about Kent 2 and the Gurgler, but is that really worth $150? A pretty thorough Google search could get the job done for a lot less.

The problem is I don't know if the sign was GO TO THE REUNION or DON'T GO TO THE REUNION. Perhaps I need to combine it with the other signs from my journey that have yet to be interpreted:

1. An armadillo slowly (but successfully!) crossing the interstate.
2. A Homeland Security winnebago heading north (trouble at the Canadian border?).
3. Real live vultures eating a real dead carcass on the side of the road. Okay, they may not have been vultures, but they were definitely birds. And they were definitely picking at an unidentifiable carcass.
4. A television commercial advertising a website featuring alpaca farms.

I guess one option is to see if Corpus Christi is still there when I drive back home tomorrow.