It's my nature to help from behind the front lines, so to speak, and in this case, my instincts to hang back and not attend any committee meetings were correct. Maybe my intuition is more trustworthy than I thought. In a matter of a few days, a series of one-sided tirades escalated into a bizarre personality meltdown, culminating in the cancellation of the reunion. Wow. It just goes to show, you can graduate, but you can never really leave.I think it started when someone not on the committee said something they shouldn't have on Facebook about the park that the chairperson had chosen for the event (too far out of town, too dirty, etc.). Our illustrious chairperson immediately lit up the internet with a vitriolic response. Some of it ended up in an email that got forwarded to me. I immediately hunkered down to dodge the bullets whizzing gaily over my head.
“If everyone in our committee does not like my leadership, let me know,” she wrote (which one committee member proceeded to do). “After all the hours I have spent.....and the hours I have put in, I am just about to cancel this reunion!” Then she banned two people from attending the reunion. (Can you do that?)
“This reunion is so important to me,” she went on. “Some of us may not be around for the 50th, so the 40th should be colorful and fun. I am so upset right now in tears.”
I found myself wondering if she's perhaps chronically ill? Maybe she's terminal and she doesn't want to say anything? ..... Nah. If she were, she would have let us all know, early and often. Nope, I'm pretty sure she's diagnosable with nothing more serious than a really mucky case of self-centered Little-Hitlerism. Which, unlike many other -isms, is not fatal, although if you have it and finally regain your senses, you may wish it were.
Sadly, things really started to unravel when the chairperson was unable to attend a committee meeting (due to a stress attack brought on by being slandered on Facebook). The remaining three stalwart committee members did what any group of functional adults would do: they got on with the business of planning the reunion. Then they bravely sent out minutes, which were forwarded to me. (I guess I'm the phantom member of the committee.)
Upon receiving the minutes of the meeting she had not attended, the chairperson sent out a response. She typed her rant between the lines of the secretary's minutes.
Secretary: We decided to continue with the planning, in the absence of the chairperson.
Chair: I don't see that you needed me there. You've made decisions! It should have been opinions!
Secretary: In regard to the cakes, if everyone agrees, this is what we'll do.
Chairperson: No! You do not make decisions!!! (You can measure blood pressure by the number of exclamation points, did you know that? It's true.)
Secretary: We'll order one sheet cake from Costco with [name of high school] on it in red and blue.
Chairperson: I told you I was getting the cake. I had a special table for it. It would have been simple if you had listened to me from the beginning. I already decided the cake and I said I was doing it.
(Wow. Just typing this dialogue is raising my blood pressure. I feel an exclamation point coming on.)
Secretary: Sorry, but I don't think we can ban anyone from the event.
Chairperson: It is not your decision!!!
Another email came through shortly after from one of the three remaining committee members, apologizing to the chairperson for upsetting her and tendering her resignation from the committee. And then there were two (and me, lurking).
The last I heard, the remaining two members have yanked the planning from the chairperson's grasping hands, and she's taking nitro tablets and calling her nurse. Well, so maybe she is ill. I guess I will work on being more compassionate.
The moral of this story? Best to let high school remain in the past. You didn't like those people 40 years ago; you aren't going to like them any better now.
