Life's loose ends - a little something fun

When I was a kid, we were very poor. I started working at age fifteen, six days a week and we still ate ketchup on crackers for dinner sometimes.

My senior year in high school, I began squirreling away loose change and the odd dollar, because I really, really, really wanted my senior yearbook, class ring, and class key.

I placed the order and saved like mad. The total bill came to just under $130 - a veritable fortune. In May, when the shipment came in and the final payment was due, I was $8 short. I don't know what was wrong with me, but it never occurred to me to ask a teacher or a friend if they could spot me eight bucks. I never even tried to claim my order.

A few years ago, they completely renovated my high school. In a storage closet, there were new yearbooks, extras and unclaimed, from the 1970s all the way through to the early '00s. Someone who still lives in my hometown, took all the books off their hands.

She posted notice of it on Facebook and there was one 1987 yearbook in the bunch, presumably the one I never claimed. I sent her a message, but someone else had reserved it just a few minutes before me. But she never picked it up.

So, this morning, I got a note. After all these years, I'll at least be getting my high school yearbook. Cool, huh?

Now we'll see if my husband divorces me when he sees my senior picture. If it's as bad as I remember, he just might.

Yeah, it'll be weird to have a pristine book now that nearly twenty-five years have passed, but it will be quite fun to remember all their faces.