I just got back from my ten year high school reunion.
How fucking surreal was that?
It was strange to walk in and be greeting with a bunch of high school faces sitting at the bar, nursing their cocktails.
Everyone seemed to regress into their HS behaviors. They sat with their respective groups for the most part, and didn't seem to wander around to say hello to others. Not like they needed to float around or anything, though. They had all they wanted right in front of them.
The whole thing was just a weird sociological experiment at work.
I do admit that I mostly hung around with the same people that I did in high school... mostly because all the other people didn't seem to want to talk to me. They'd just smile a fake smile and turn away. The same people that have always been the nice ones, were certainly still the same. The popular people gathered in a circle on the dance floor to strut their stuff to tunes such as Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" and Rob Base's "It Takes Two". I kinda swayed back and forth with a few of my gal pals while we watched the circle. It was a very Ghost World moment.
A wedding party from a few rooms over crashed our reunion. They hit the dance floor for a few songs and even strategically dropped a wine glass on the floor, sending it to shatter into many pieces. But, man, When you ditch your wedding reception to crash a high school reunion, your party has *gotta* be bad.
No one claimed to invent post-its... although, the fellow in our class that provided the DJ services claimed to be "world-renowned". I cannot vouch for this statement.
At the end of the evening, a fellow approached my friend Molly and I (who I really didn't talk to much in high school, but we grew up together from first grade) and said to me, "I remember you, we had english with (Mr.) Jensen together. You were the really quiet one. You were always nice to me."
He then turned to Molly and said bluntly, "And you always thought you were better than the rest of us. What was up with that?"
Wow. BURN.
I am pretty sure he was wasted. He was actually quite the quiet one in HS as well, and I guess he needed a little social lubricant to bring out that side in him.
Anyone else have any interesting (or even non-interesting) reunion stories to share?
gen [email] said at 12:33 PM 11-28-2004: My 10 year reunion will be sometime this spring. I'm planning to go. There are a few people I completely lost track of, and I'd like to see them again.
reggie [email] said at 2:23 PM 11-28-2004: You know, my ten year reunion is coming up next year too. I haven't heard anything from anybody though. Whether or not I'm looking forward to it depends on if I'm doing anything with my life by that time besides working at @#!$% Borders...
zack [email] said at 2:32 PM 11-28-2004: i missed my 10 year reunion.. I am sort of glad I missed it but a little sad about it too. Missed out on having one night stands with all the girls I used to have crushes on!!
dave [email] said at 2:47 PM 11-28-2004: awful. every girl ballooned up, had a litter of kids, and at the end of the night all booty danced on the tables. i did do like that quiet guy and drop a bomb on someone.
A girl who was very popular in high school came up to me and said, "You know we never talked to you guys in high school, but that's just because we didn't really know you." To which I replied, "we didn't talk to you because we didn't like you."
i was a dick in highschool and still am.
among other favorites i heard.
"weren't you president of Enron or something?"
"last time I saw you Dave you were chasing me down the road with a knife."
"i'm sorry i acted like .... in high school" to which I replied "you'll get no closure from me."
dave [email] said at 8:11 AM 11-29-2004: it was Claire something. she was a cheerleader and had sorta a moustache at one time. or maybe it was Kelly Guidry, I can't be sure.
myriam [email] said at 9:24 PM 11-28-2004: nice. also, it is so ridiculously stupid to say that you didn't talk to someone simply for lack of knowing them. one more reason that logic should be tought to every american schoolchild.
dave [email] said at 8:12 AM 11-29-2004: well critical thinking was not one of the base skills focused on at Sulphur High School. To her credit I think she meant to say she was intimdated by the scary punk rockers.
kate [email] said at 9:11 PM 11-29-2004: i know brad only from meeting him through josh during college so not even when we were in high school. i went to barbe, c/o '96. : ) so i don't think we have ever met. small world though. if you both come home for christmas we should have a beer together!
ed [email] said at 3:48 PM 11-28-2004: I skipped my 10 year reunion. THIRTEEN YEARS AGO.
Oddly enough, I may not have a chance to attend any future reunions. My high school ceased to exist as of last June. Now, I'm kinda sorry I didn't go to the 10-spot. I wasn't at the time, but am now.
Darryl X. said at 6:04 PM 11-28-2004: I got drunk. You see, the bar was ticket-based, and everybody kept leaving their drink tickets on tables where I could steal them. A scotch and water was six tickets. I had about ten of those.
And the DJ kept playing really bad music. And not even bad music from the year I graduated. And, apropos of nothing, he would say these really stupid things like: "Class of '94 in the mothafuckin' HOUSE!" and "Here's one y'all might remember." Typical wigger bullshit.
And, being the horribly aggressive drunk that I am, I unplugged all the speakers and told the DJ that if he talked again, I'd kill him. My wife was embarrassed and the several cops my class produced were trying to stop the scene I was creating, like an ass.
Then, I tried to slide down an impossibly steep bannister, tore my pants and hurt my back so bad I had to lie down on the bathroom floor.
marcia [email] said at 8:25 PM 11-28-2004: my 10 year highschool reunion was this past summer. i had no interest in knowing what a bunch of people who i wasn't friends with and who i didn't care about have done with their lives since highschool.
i used classmates.com to get in contact with the 4 friends who i lost contact with over the years.
Oona Goosepimple said at 10:05 AM 11-29-2004: I missed my 10 year reunion because CARLA was about to be born
At my 20 year reunion, everyone was trying to showoff how much money they were making or how high on the corporate ladders they had climbed. One of my former classmates entertained by giving oral sex to guys in the men's room. And she'd been a Catholic School tranfer, too. And a woman my husband had had an affair with shortly after we married was there in a flashy irridesent dress and butter yellow hair and a boy toy.
At my 30 year reunion, there was hardly anyone there. The woman with the butter colored hair was there, I almost accidently sat at her table...now she was boozy, frumpy and, well, pitiful. Sometimes one has to wait 30 years to realize it, but being happy is the best revenge.
milky [email] said at 1:09 PM 11-29-2004: My 10 year reuninon was pretty simple. The DJ sucked. We had a small graduating class anyway. I said hello to all the peoples and more or less hung out with the people I was in homeroom with. My two best friends didn't want to go, so I just hung out with the people that I talked to for at least a few minutes, every day, for 7 years.
The popular crowd of people were all in honors classes anyway, some of them remarked that I looked great and had changed quite a bit (I had a different pair of frames and I wore a blazer but nothing else had changed much in 10 years). There was no real snobbery though. A lot of people really grew up and it was great to see them.
Those who were obnoxious and wanted attention in HS really didn't do much of anything. Well, one did, but nobody cared. It wasn't anything offensive anyway, just bright, red-faced, smiling drunken behavior.
Everything ended early and there was an after party at a local club but I called it a night.
An ex-gf told my date about her implants. I had conversations with people I hadn't seen in years and didn't expect to see.
One of my classmates in homeroom, who always got ribbed when he showed proof he was a Native American (why they asked if anyone was every year in homeroom was beyond me) looked fantastic and had a great-looking wife. I thought that was really cool. I wanted to ask him if he linked up with a casino tribe but I didn't because I thought it was an inappropriate thing to ask.
I was the only male who ventured out on the dancefloor, and even though I can't dance, I figured it was something I should go ahead and do since I played the wall a lot at HS dances.
A bunch of people who were in the "in" crowd but married and stuck around asked me a ton of questions about what it was like being out of town for 10 years, and lamenting there wasn't much to do here.
I have no idea what the 20 year is going to look like. No one talked about what they were making, just briefly saying what they did...everyone cared more about how everyone was doing. Small towns are OK like that.
Chrispy said at 8:54 PM 11-29-2004: I tried to skip my ten year reunion. I skipped it, but I had a couple of friends that I still sorta half-ass keep up with (I think I haven't talked to them in a few years...I should call...)who told me ALL about it anyway. But it only took about an hour of bullshit on a telephone to hear about it. I may go to my twentieth out of morbid curiosity.
