Graduation Harem

In the graduation harem, you travel in flocks. You wear inordinate amounts of make-up and shriek very loudly. There are 20 or maybe 30 guys and gals you know walking the line and you are there to support them. They have graduated from high school and they have graduated from college and it is time to party! You're like groupies but where, with a band, sex with groupies is more of a sure thing, you are part of the graudation harem and younger and, perhaps, not yet sexually active. In the graudation harem, you are probably a girl, but it is the 21st century and one must never make assumptions based on gender. You raise your homemade banner high when they call a name you recognize. BRAD WILLIAMS! English class and a glance or two over four years; why you're practically family. Your underwire is cutting a mean swath and you have to turn away from the spectacle, during the Star-Spangled Banner or one of the speeches delivered by overachieving classmates, to adjust the offending metal when no one is looking. SYLVIA JENNINGS! She embarassed you in the bathroom in the second floor that day when Brad Williams told you he doesn't date girls with necks like chickens or she embarassed you in the social center when Brad Williams (not to pick on the guy but, let's face it, he gets around) told you that he doesn't date guys 'cause he's on the football team and prefers his homoeroticism to be of the repressed variety. Cheer louder for the bitch; you might run into her, later, at a party and she'll notice if you're not whooping it up. She's got ears like a hawk. In the graduation harem, you have a tough job. You have already graduated or you're a year shy of this major event that hasn't quite sunk in for you. But it's all right. Responsibility hasn't sunk in and that moment where life become, well, more REAL has not sunk in. And how could it? The make-up isn't smearing much under the lights that aren't too hot and the home-made banner you hold with cramping hands hasn't but a tear or two in it. You are a part of the graduation harem and it is time to party! Now, you just hope they remember your name when you accidentally "bump into" the graduates outside the back door.