11:03 a.m. | 2004-02-07 The Six Degrees Of Law School. Once Removed, Or Something. I drug my sorry ass outta bed this morning � �drug� being the pertinent word, but not in any kind of illegal way � to go to work. Stay with me here� they changed my schedule and all. Anyway, OfficeMateColleague (OMC) hit me up with a lunch invitation right away. I mean that in the sense that it happened before noon. He invited me to join him and his wife for lunch, actually. That seemed odd to me. See, at our OldWorkPlace, only Boss and Colleague had a spouse. Fully-staffed? Three out of the five of us didn�t. Plus, Boss lived in BossTown so her husband was never included. Hence, the spousal lunch thing was sacred. Based on Colleague alone, I guess. He never invited us to join him and his wife/kids for lunch. However, OMC is young, they don�t have kids, and he�s like me when it comes to names and faces. To us, it�s important to put them together. If only so that you can picture the person the spousal unit, or me, is complaining about. I mean, come on, OMC and I share an office. A small office. It�s not like I can�t hear him and he can�t hear me. And, it�s not like we don�t annoy the fuck out of each other sometimes, although we excel at NOT trying to do that. We actually get along quite well, but due to our proximity and work requirements, we do impact each other. Plus, matching names with faces is important to both of us. Eventually, OMC invited everyone in the office to join us, however, only Colleague and I were free to do so. It was at that moment that I realized that we all graduated from the same law school. But, I kept my tongue. Because we all have different feelings about that experience. Colleague pretty much blows it off; I have some hard feelings but also some good ones; OMC is downright bitter about it � he�ll tell you that up front � and I don�t know about OMC�s wife. We all went through HELL, I will tell you that. And, come to think of it, since I was the only night student in the bunch � meaning that I worked fulltime in addition to going to school � it was a different experience for me. And, I�m finding that being a night student had its benefits. I knew going in that it wouldn�t be an even competition, but I�m pretty much only competitive with myself so that didn�t really matter. But, I�m realizing � years later, mind you � that I never had to deal with all that bullshit. It�s pretty cutthroat during the day. I did witness that a little bit. But, at night with everyone working fulltime (and overtime), we didn�t have that going on. Someone would notice that you didn�t make class and they�d copy their notes for you. With the day students? Apparently, they made up fake notes so you�d fail. And, I did see that in every one of the classes I had with day students. In addition, they apparently stab you in the back too. On a personal level, I mean. We didn�t have that going on. No, instead� we had a whole bunch of loving, or friendliness going on. Thank god. It would�ve been awful to re-experience my childhood during law school. Just for the record. Later in the day, I went to talk to Colleague and BFB joined us. And, we talked about GuyFriend. We all graduated from the same law school. Even worse, we went on to talk about other folks that also graduated from the same place. And, to make it worse, Colleague, OMC and OMC�s wife all grew up in MyTown. It�s freaking incestuous in MyTown. Really, put us all together and we know everybody. I probably never told you this before, but I moved � from many, many small towns � to �the City� so I�d be anonymous. Freaking incestuous I tell you. your thoughts? seed flower