The SEB is Back Again

Last week just outright sucked. I read, I played video games, and I tried very hard not to think a whole lot because Mark wasn't around to help pull me out of nasty thought-holes. It worked to varying degrees of success: everything from "hey at least it worked for fifteen minutes this time" to abyssmal failure. You'd think reuniting with Mark and some college buddies at a wedding would cheer me right up, wouldn't you? You'd be dead wrong.

First, the wedding was in Wisconsin. Long-time sufferers readers of this blog know very well how much I despise the Midwest. So that was a definite strike against the weekend. Second, I was within spitting distance of my brother (his new company is in Madison, but he's not there anymore as they shipped out to California for training yesterday) and of my mother's family. But I had no time to spend with them. Had I known that I was going to be unemployed and interview-less last week, I would've flown out with Mark at the beginning of the week and spent the time he was at the conference with relatives. And, finally, simply stating that I was a college buddy of the groom was enough to stamp a glaring "SEB" on my forehead.

What, you ask, does "SEB" stand for? Super Elitist Bitch. I have no idea what kind of stories this college buddy told, but I suppose it has more to do with the popular impression of Notre Dame students being trust-fund babies or something. This is the second time in my life - that I know of - that I've been very much mistakenly lumped in with well-off kids who dropped $100,000 getting their degrees and still had money left over for a very nice SUV and a convertible. The first time, it was an ex-boyfriend telling me I had no right to be upset about my parents' divorce because I was a Notre Dame senior and therefore in the top 2% most financially stabile people in the world. That he said this as part of his seven-page email detailing exactly why he had dumped my ass didn't help anything either. And this wedding marked the second time. Had I known it would've been a problem, I would've introduced myself in the following fashion: "Hi, I'm Kellie, a college buddy of the groom. Before you go making any assumptions, I was only able to attend Notre Dame because I got a fair amount of scholarships. And I suppose now's a good time to mention just how much money my parents shelled out for the experience and how much money I'm still shelling out for those four years of educational bliss."

It was just a weird night all together. There were only three college buds there, and one was a groomsmen. So that left me, Mark and the other college bud to fend for ourselves at a table with some random cousins of the groom. One of said random cousins, on hearing that we were the groom's college buddies, said, "Well, I didn't go to college, so what does that mean?" And then he spent the rest of the night butting into our conversations when he had a nice undercutting thing to say about us. As soon as we got up to get some drinks at the bar, the random cousins invited quite a group to take our seats. And it just sort of continued on from there. The crowning acheivement of the evening occurred when the groomsmen/college bud introduced me to the bridesmaid he'd been cavorting with all evening. No, strike that, she introduced herself. And this, I quote, is exactly how she went about it (be sure to read this with a so-there-you-wanna-make-somethin'-of-it attitude): "Hi, I'm M-----. I went to a cheap state school." I didn't dash out her name to protect her identity. I dashed it out because I can't remember it. I'll probably bump into her again and go, "Oh, hi, Cheap State School. You must remember me. I'm Super Elitist Bitch."