How do you recover from this?

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I decided to stop at a yard sale on the way out to his parent's house. We get side-tracked pretty easy from the allure of yard sales anyway, but this particular one was screaming for us to stop. I'm pretty sure it was from the 243 signs posted in the 2 mile radius we had traveled going from our house to the coffee place and then on our way to the original destination.

This puppy was well signed. I'll just say that.

Bright yellow signs with huge black arrows were strategically placed on every block at every corner. No. I'm not kidding. We didn't even have to read the address. We just followed the yellow paper signs. Followed the yellow paper signs? Follow the yellow paper signs! Follow the yellow paper signs! Follow follow follow follow follow the yellow paper signs! (insert happy violin music here)

*cough-cough*

Sorry. It's that Wizard of Oz thing with me. But, again, that's a post for another time.

ANYWAY....Troy and I turn in to the cul-de-sac that's hosting this wonderful garage sale. We are pumped. We are excited. Any garage sale with THAT much publicity has got to be a good one. We ante up our dollar bills to see how much we have together. We are good.

As we enter through the side gate (because that's where the yellow signs told us to go) we could see table after table piled with treasures awaiting our arrival! I immediately walked over to the craft department (yes, she had "departments") and was slightly disappointed to see lots of excellent crafting items from the 80's. But since it is 2008, not so excellent. I left the piles of baskets, cross stitch, embroidery hoop purse instructions and macramé cord to look at some books. While I'm searching through them, Troy is chatting it up with the garage sale hostess and tells her that she absolutely wins the award for the best directions/signs to any yard sale that weekend. They shared a laugh, chatted some more about a silly ice chest and then Troy walked away. I turned to walk with him and I heard a voice say, "Is that Cheri Pryor?"

I held my breath. This can be a win or lose situation, know what I'm sayin'? In my mind I quickly deducted that it can't be someone from high school I don't particularly want to see since they used my married name. And since I've been gone from my home town for almost 11 years now, there's a good chance it's someone I haven't seen at all since I've been gone.

I turn. I recognize the person right away. I respond with, "Aren't you so-and-so's sister?" I smile, pleased that I have recognized the person AND remember a name. Only she informs me she is NOT the sister. It is HER, with additional weight since I last saw her, which is why I didn't recognize her CORRECTLY. I have not seen her in over 12 years. Now, I've got my own "issues" with additional weight, but I basically look the same. Well, from the front. Nobody would recognize this butt from behind.

What makes this situation so underly, horribly uncomfortable for me (besides the obvious) is that I worked with HER for 6 years!! In a small, family owned newspaper/print shop. We sat 8 feet away from each other FOR 6 YEARS, PEOPLE! She gave me a baby shower for my daughter and I gave her one for hers 2 years later.

"God. It's me, Cheri. Please send your son back to save your earthly children right now. Or at least just this one child. This would be a great time. Thank you."

That didn't happen, by the way.

All in all I think I recovered from it quite nicely. I chatted it up about our kids and got caught up on jobs and life stuff. She shared pictures of her beautiful daughters, one that had just graduated from High School and the other that had just graduated from 8th grade. It was idle chit-chat, but actually nice to see her again.

And she's moving to Kentucky.

So chances are I'll never have to relive this horrible, rotten, embarrassing moment by running in to her ever again.

Which is good. Because Troy and I left without buying a single thing.