When I graduated from college all of my really close friends ended up graduating in the morning ceremony, leaving me alone in the afternoon ceremony. The campus was swarming with people in black robes and square hats and I followed the general flow to the Red Courtyard, the large central courtyard on campus so named because it was made out of red bricks. I wandered around in the sea of black looking for someone I knew to talk to. I spotted David, a guy I had taken several classes with. Originally we met when his roommate was dating my roommate. They had a messy breakup but David and I stayed out of it as best we could and remained friends long after they were no longer on speaking terms. I came up and gave him a friendly hug, more to see him blush then out of any affection for him. He introduced me to the people he was standing with, mostly friends from his dorm. David and I were both Creative Writing majors and we had a lot of similar acquaintances from our classes. It wasn't long before I was in a cluster of people that I knew fairly well.
As the time for the ceremony drew near we were given instructions via a megaphone, the most important of which was to pair up. As soon as the instructions were over I asked David to be my partner and he agreed. With that potential crisis seemly averted I relaxed and went back to mingling. However, when we were ordered to line up with our partners, David had disappeared. Trying not to appear frantic I looked around for him and asked those around me if they'd seen him, but everyone who had seen him had no clue to his present whereabouts. The people with the megaphones were attempting to herd us into line and I had no partner. I didn't want to end up at the end of the line with all of the other friendless losers and end up sitting through the whole ceremony with a perfect stranger. It was then that I saw Erin, a woman I had taken several classes with and knew fairly well. She appeared to be alone so I took a gamble and approached her.
"Hey Erin, have you seen David? I was supposed to walk in with him." I asked as casually as I could muster.
"No, sorry," she said as she looked around without actually looking at me.
The no eye contact was a bad sign, but I forged ahead, "Damn, you can't trust boys to be there when you need them."
Erin chuckled, and then said, "Yeah, I'm looking for my friend Adam."
I figured as soon as Adam showed up I was screwed, but just then a megaphone wielding man came up and told us to get in line. Apparently by standing alone with Erin he assumed we were partners. The megaphone guy wouldn't budge unless we moved towards the line so I grabbed Erin's arm.
"Come on, we'll stand in line together until we can find our friends."
We reached the line and merged in with other acquaintances, none of whom had seen either Adam or David recently. I knew the moment Adam showed up I'd be abandoned and forced to get out of line, and was in a heightened state of anxiety. When Erin called out Adam's name I thought I was going to pass out, but when the guy approached he wasn't alone. Introductions were made and the pretty woman on his arm was apparently a new acquaintance he hoped to get to know better. In other words, Erin was being ditched because Adam wanted to get into this woman's bed. They joined us in line and Erin said something along the line of us being stuck together just as we were ushered towards the gym where the ceremony would take place.
Erin and I took our seats and chit chatted a bit about our plans. She spotted her family who had traveled all the way from Montana see her graduate. I looked around for my family, but couldn't find them. Then the ceremony began, and the school president had only said a few statements when Erin leaned over and whispered to me.
"She sounds just like the teacher from South Park," she said.
"I don't hear it," I said after listening for a few moments for the slow, monotonous drawl of that character.
"You're kidding me," Erin said, "she sounds just like him."
To emphasize her point she began adding that character's signature, "Umm kay," every time the president paused. It wasn't tremendously funny, but a mixture of extreme heat and high anxiety had made me giddy, and therefore I laughed every single time. I don't have a loud laugh, but sitting in a relatively quiet room I was drawing dirty looks from many people around us. This didn't make either one of us stop and by the time the president introduced the guest speaker and took her seat, my sides hurt from laughing so much.
The rest of the ceremony was uneventful until we got up to get our diplomas. We went a row at a time, exiting from the left, making a loop across the stage to shake hands with the president as our names were called, then returned to our seats via the right side. When David's name was called I realized he was only two rows ahead of me. I really wanted to ask him why he had ditched me, but part of me had already guessed the answer and knew he wasn't man enough to admit it. Slowly but surely it was my turn to hand the announcer my name card and go up the steps.
The name cards gave the announcer phonetic clues about how to pronounce your name as well as any honors you had. My card read, "Kimberly Anne Tramel, (like 'camel'), Sigma Cum Laude." As I reached the top of the stage the announcer called my name and a loud shout erupted from directly behind me. The shout was so loud that I was startled and whirled around to see what it was. It took me a few seconds but eventually it dawned on me that it was my family cheering from just left of the stage. Erin was following close behind me and seeing her come on stage I remembered what I was supposed to be doing and turned around to shake the president's hand.
As she took my hand the president said, "Sigma Cum Laude, good job, keep it up."
It didn't occur to me that she was probably tired after shaking hands all morning and all afternoon for the sole purpose of making sure each graduate stood still long enough for a picture to be taken. In that moment of giddy confusion all that occurred to me was, "Keep it up? I just graduated you dumb ass. Umm kay?"
