It was the most improbable Homecoming Court in the history of the tiny Kansas high school and the outrage was high.

Standing on the 50-yard line were two couples nominated for King and Queen that fit the paradigm: a male football player with a female cheerleader. You know, the way things are supposed to be. And next to them, on the left of these two couples were Jean and I. She was a butch tennis player (the athlete of our pair) and I was the speech and drama kid.

Jean and I were not supposed to be up there. The social order of things did not support the nomination of such an unlikely pair and leading up to this moment the jocks and cheerleaders made it abundantly clear that they would not accept this high school equivalent of a mutated two-headed Korgi soiling their class identity.