School Identity Problems

Last week, I went to another event for my snooty faux-religious prep high school. We have a new headmaster who decided to make a pilgrimage to New York to meet all of us New York alums and make his show us all the new bells and whistles at our school and make his sales pitch to get more money out of us.

He was going through his powerpoint presentation of the physical improvements to the school when he arrived at the slide of our brand new football field, which I have to say must have cost a fortune. It looks like something a football field at one of the Friday Night Lights high schools because we certainly were not a football powerhouse in Virginia. Well, maybe we are now. I have no idea. Anyhow, we were looking at our new idyllic playground of artificial grass when one of my fellow alums commented on the gigantic "S" in the middle of the field. Now, my school was one of those classically elite private schools, so of course we had to be named after some random saint. So we all kind of gave a strange look, when she asked "Whose decision was it to use 'S'?" Someone chimed in "As opposed to what?" And she said "well, how about 'A'"? Everyone in the room, even the people visiting from Virginia, gave her a strange look, and we asked her "What school did you go to, Albemarle?" Which horror of horrors is a public school.

Sidebar: Later that evening I realized she meant "A" as in "Anne" since our school is St. Anne's. Looks like the joke was on us.