Excursions in Suburbia

  The wannabe Faneuil Hall bar that somehow was banished to the wannabe white collar, but not quite there yet, suburban nightmare filled up quickly Saturday night with groups of friends of all ages, though mostly over thirty, as the band set up in the corner in front of the large television playing the UConn-Villanova NCAA game. My friends and I, urbanites through and through, were there not only to support the band, as my uncle was the lower lip-biting, bespectacled bass guitarist and backup singer, but also because I promised my friends the very real and certainly guaranteed opportunity to mock the locals, the townies as it were, as Mansfield is quintessentially a Townie Town, and that was made painfully evident only a short time later.

  The band starts pumping out an enjoyable selection of 90's soft rock hits that Rob Thomas probably has on a mix-CD he made sometime at the apex of his career but has since forgotten about. My aunt, a Mansfieldite herself, is in my party and quickly acknowledges that just about everyone around us went to high school with her - twenty five years prior.  It became evident that the social heirarchy of the high school dynamic doesn't have the opportunity to grow or change when nobody leaves the town. The wannabes still want to be as "cool" as the cool kids, and the cool kids know that at least in their own little microcosm that they are still just that.

  To our left was a table of four women sitting awkwardly behind the speakers, each eating a salad with dressing on the side and almost obnoxiously typically sharing an order of mozzarella sticks. Their clothes are clearly a bit tighter than they're comfortable with but it's Saturday night and they're effectively on the prowl, still trying to catch the eye of the same guy who didn't notice them at junior prom and only signed their yearbook with his name, no message. They all wear pearl earrings and a pearl necklace - but lord knows, not the dirty kind- and sweater sets. They stayed at their table all evening, staring longingly at the dance floor, wishing so much that they could just let go for once in their lives.

   In regards to the dance floor, immediately to my right, it was covered with a gaggle of women appropriately referred to by a member of my party as The Real Housewives of Mansfield, MA as each of them was dressed completely in Real Housewife uniform. Starting at the feet, each of the six or so forty-plus year old women were wearing heels somewhere over four inches tall disabling their already feeble excuses for dance moves to a general body sway and an occasional slow turn. Each woman wore a pair of tight black pants to show off the fact that they've all been able to keep their bodies in general good shape with a combination of constant and excessive dieting, hours upon hours at the gym and- for some of them- their secret addictions to railing the prescription drugs they've convinced their therapist they need. Their upper bodies were covered with any sort of blouse, covering their arms of course, as not every woman can compare to Madonna biceptually, in black, white, or some combination of the two. Each and every lady had bleach blond hair, perhaps to cover their grey hairs, or even worse, to cover the fact that they were naturally born a brunette, as so few of those on the dark side get let into the clan.

  Among them, I was eventually informed, was the  - and I quote - "It Couple" from high school.  One of the clones standing awkwardly in front of, and constantly trying to get the attention of her "it" husband. He stood, pretty tall, if I had to guess, the letterman jacketed football quarterback, leaning against the bar, staring past the band at the NCAA game, despite the fact that UConn was significantly ahead. His Stepford wife stayed directly in front of him, every once in a while turning to face him, and as awkwardly as her high heels and tight pants would allow tried to "grind" (as the kids say) down the front of him which would elicit only a look of acknowledgement from the letterman, followed by a swig from his Bud Diesel bottle. 

 And people questioned my intense desires to get away from high school.