SSWW.

I'm really good at keeping secrets. I grew up with an older sister who had a very difficult time keeping any present she bought for me a surprise, despite how much I'd beg her not to tell me. (At our grammar school, an entirely overpriced establishment known as "Santa's Secret Shop"--referred to by our father, the Pun-Maker of America, as "Santa's Secret Swindle"--would be set up before Christmastime for a couple of weeks. Each student would be sent to school with petty cash to purchase ridiculously tacky Christmas gifts for each member of his or her family. Lauren could never resist calling me over to her side of the bed and fishing out my Christmas gift well before present-opening time. I soon grew wise to her ways, but she'd stop at nothing: she once waved me over, exclaiming that she wanted to show me what she'd gotten Daddy that year. I crept over and knelt beside her, only to see her swiftly whip out a serving platter that had a pastoral scene with impressionist sheep upon it. "LOOK WHAT I GOT YOU!" she screeched. Tricky, she was. Also, her gift ideas as a child were questionable, at best. I mean, a sheep platter? Why would I even need a platter, let alone one with sheep on it? I'm still baffled by this, to this day.)

But anyway. The point of the previous story is that I, however, can keep a secret quite well. Someone had to in our household. So when I got the idea to create a secret society and then induct some of my closest and unsuspecting friends into it, I kept my mouth shut about the almost unbelievable things that happened when said induction occurred. I found out months later that, despite having sworn to keep everything they'd seen amongst those involved only, everyone else in the secret society had blabbed about the induction, save for Allie. I was mentioning this to my friend Wesley a couple of days ago, and he immediately responded that I will make a fantastic grandparent. This is the loveliest compliment I have gotten in quite some time. And it also helped me realize that it'd make a good blog post, now that the cat's been out of the bag for a good while.

Myself, with my friends Sarah and Toni, decided to create a secret club called SSWW (Sui Generis Sneakers of the Written Word), the purpose of which still remains unclear, to this day. I know it had something to do with a book exchange, but I can't really remember what our other motivations were. Regardless, we didn't put the thing into action until my senior year of college, the spring of my graduation. Sarah, Toni, and I selected three worthy individuals--Sam, Allie (one of my current, long-suffering roommates, yes), and Cheryl--and then set about making plans. I wrote a nice, long pledge that the new members would be required to repeat, burned a soundtrack for the mysterious car ride, rounded up some costumes, and worded an appropriately cryptic text message to serve as the inductees' invitation. Toni, Sarah, and I each selected a favorite book of ours to give to another member of SSWW--a secret-society-warming-gift, if you will.

The proceedings began at midnight. The three of us piled into my Honda and drove to each inductee's dorm, at which point either Sarah or Toni would step out of the car and blindfold each girl before shoving her into the backseat. I should probably mention at this point that the music I'd selected for our car ride was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. And I was blaring it awfully loudly. (Maybe your reading of this blog entry would be improved if you youtubed this fine piece of music at this point and continued to listen to it as you read the remainder. It will give you an approximate feel of how the night progressed.)

No one spoke during the car ride, naturally. After we'd gathered all three girls, we drove to Pride Field, a big, open field in front of our university's gym that served as the marching band's practice ground. (We had originally wanted a more secretive venue, but sacrifices had to be made, seeing as it was the middle of the night.) As soon as the girls piled out of the car, they were forced to don bridesmaid dresses that I had been keeping in my dress-up trunk in my room. Toni, Sarah, and I were, of course, already wearing our dresses. These dresses were, I should mention, from the local thrift store. They appeared to be from the late seventies or early eighties.

We then lit and passed out candles for each person to hold, and I began reciting the speech I'd prepared. There was a bit of giggling, but things were going smoothly for the most part--the whole thing felt vaguely illegal and mysterious. Which was desirable. I had just gotten to the pledge that was to be recited when we noticed a police car circling the gym's parking lot. I pressed on, inwardly reassuring myself that it was just the police car assigned to campus, making its rounds. We wouldn't be bothered--we weren't doing anything actually illegal. Or were we? When the police car stopped, parked, and an officer emerged, heading straight for our circle, panic immediately ensued.

"Blow out the candles!" Toni commanded. We complied, unsure of what to do next. The officer was getting closer.

"What do we do?" I whimpered fearfully. I'd gone from fearless leader to jail-fearing 'fraidy-cat in a matter of seconds.

"Run," Sam stage-whispered. (She never took this thing seriously enough.)

At this point, the officer was upon us. I bravely picked up where I'd left off in the pledge, muttering something about promoting literacy to the masses, as the police officer quietly joined our circle and appraised the situation. After we'd finished reciting and repeating, he made a motion to speak.

"Just, uh...what's going on here, ladies?" he inquired.

I could feel five heads swivel toward me. Apparently I'd been elected spokesperson. Lovely.

"This is a secret society," I timidly began, fully cognizant of how ridiculous I sounded. "And this...is an induction ceremony."

The police officer nodded thoughtfully, and then took something out of his back pocket to hand to me: his card. His name was Officer Knight.

"Well, then. I do believe I've just been inducted into a secret society," he said, with the beginnings of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. "You girls can just let me know the next time you have a meeting, and I'll make sure nobody gives you any trouble." With that, he left the field, climbed back into his car, and drove off. We were left standing in our circle, dumbfounded.

The rest of the night was rather uneventful, comparatively. We exchanged books (Cheryl was unable to get past the fact that this was the climax of the night. "Do you mean to tell me that this--this midnight meeting, with cops and blindfolds and scary music--is nothing more than a glorified book club?" she seethed), and then we drove the girls home. 'Twas one of the best nights of my life, I tell you. An unusual conglomeration of events, to say the least.

And I THOUGHT we were all sworn to secrecy. But the other girls confessed later on that the story had been far too good to keep to themselves, so they ended up sharing it with siblings and significant others. Humph. See if I induct them into my next secret society.