The Woes of Being Dubbed "Mrs. Raven" in Public in the '90's
November 22, 2005
(8:30am) Collette found herself once again at her desk that Tuesday morning, half-thinking at times that it might, instead, be Friday. The evening before, she and OLeif had traveled on to Journeys to purchase a small Christmas gift. And while the friendly brownie-colored sales-dude fiddled with the scanner, which was not cooperating, OLeif told him to take his time, as he would like to browse the shoes. After fixing the scanner, the sales assistance hurried over, and helped OLeif find the perfect shoe. He was quite amazed to hear of how OLeif had been given the hundred dollar bill, and just shook his head, chuckling, his white teeth sparkling.
“Yo, man, those feel good? Are they comfortable?” He asked, as OLeif slipped on a pair of sporty blacks with white stripes – tsubo.
“Holy crap!” OLeif exclaimed.
Collette was quite embarrassed.
“That’s sick,” he went on, lacing them up, shaking his head. “I don’t know, man. It’s like walking on nothin’. I’ve never worn a better-fitting shoe.”
The sales-dude laughed. “Well, hey, man. They’re comfortable and everything?”
“Oh, definitely.”
And so the sale was rung up with a bunch of five pairs of white socks and the Christmas present. OLeif was practically awed over them.
While dropping by QT for a soda on the way home, he paused a moment before getting out of the car, “I always promised myself I would never buy a pair of shoes that people would kill me for.”
That morning, Collette stumbled across a funny note, which she thought rather humorous, on Amy Humble:
“My grandmother informed me that I was not to expect her presence at my wedding. Two reasons: (1) she intends/wants to be dead by than (she’ll regret that later at the rate she’s going), and (2) she hates traveling. I told her to suck it up and come anyway. Punk.”
There was also a list of “remember when?”’s from Amy’s memory stash, and she was surprised to come across one in particular, of which she had not thought on in years:
“Remember when… Mercy and Trisha fought over who loved Nevermore Raven the most?”
Collette remembered one Thursday night in particular (“long” ago) when Diana had invited her to Awana. Collette was excited to come, and put on one of her favorite shirts: a long-sleeved red top with some emblem stitched in red thread on a pocket in the front (if memory served her correctly), and she requested that Mom put her hair in Heidi braids. Bing had also invited Carrie. Once the gathering had commenced, there was a general announcement that various clues would be given to the Awana kids and guests throughout the evening, taken from Bible verses. Whoever could guess to what object these clues tended, they would receive the said object. Collette recalled one verse used in particular, “But, Sir, I have nothing to draw with…”
Anyway, as the evening proceeded, Collette found herself sitting next to Diana and friends in a room in the basement for story time. Suddenly she heard from behind her, “Hi, Collette.”
She turned around to see the most popular, cool, and best-dressed kid of the ‘90’s in church – her (almost) oldest friend, Nevermore Raven. He wore a pageboy hat and a sly grin, as usual. Collette nodded a quiet “hello,” and turned around again. She could tell that everyone was looking at her, and she was most embarrassed. Practically no one knew who she was, however, which was good in that particular situation. For, there was a well-known rivalry going about throughout the church between Mercy Shepherd and Trisha Gump, a girl with long dark hair… Both were “head over heels in love” with Nevermore Raven. Yet, somehow, Mercy had taken the notion to use Diana as a form of “bait.” There had been a particular instance when on one Awana night, a game of ball began to turn vicious along with a popcorn fight (if Collette remembered correctly), and Diana was attacked, holding the ball. Nevermore rushed over and scattered the kids: “Come on, guys. Leave her alone.” That’s all it took. From then on, Mercy turned her battle with Trisha into an incessant teasing of Diana. Every time Collette saw Diana, there was some new story about how Mercy had come up with some new way to tease Diana about Nevermore.
So, that Thursday evening, at game time, the final clue was given, and Collette solved it rather too late. Her guess was a box of crayons (if all was remembered correctly), but someone else had already entered the idea first. She learned shortly later, however, that Carrie had won the award at Bing’s game circle (each age group received one prize), and came home with the box of bright colors. But there was redemption, for Diana’s and Collette’s game team (the green team, if remembered correctly) won the night in games. As the winner was announced, from across the room came a tremendous exclamation:
“Congratulations, Mrs. Raven!”
Silence reigned for moments, and then an eruption of noise commenced. Collette looked to the place from where the shout had evolved, and there was Mercy, sitting as smugly as you please, a great satisfactory smile on her face, staring at Diana. There was no question in anyone’s mind, to whom the exclamation was directed. Collette then happened to look to the hallway, and saw Nevermore standing just inside the room, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, wearing an indignant rather smug smile himself, also directed towards Diana. Diana was mortified. She seemed to be immediately engulfed with a rabble of sympathizers crowding around her in all their little red vests and jewels in crown pins. Collette was disturbed for her friend’s humiliation and listened to Diana moan all the way back home, before they dropped off Collette. It was a monumental day in their history, and for the longest time Nevermore refused to believe that Diana had not asked Mercy to make such a public statement. Oh, the woes of children-dom!