Sep
8
So my ten year high school reunion is this weekend. Ten years?! Can you believe it? Oh my bones! My bones, they are achin’! Now get off my lawn, you damn kids! So how does one prepare for their ten year reunion? Well I think the main thing is to prepare for the questions I’ll be asked so I can come across the best way possible. So I’ve developed a list of potential questions:
1. So where are you living these days?
There’s no way I can get out of telling them I live at home, so I soften the blow by saying that I lived in Brooklyn for a year, but I hated it so much that I moved back home. That way it’s more like my choice to live home rather than just the effect of my unsurmountable student loans and disdain of the subway system.
2. What have you been up to lately?
I could tell them about my blog, but it seems like everyone I’ve ever told about my blog is a member of the 1% of the American population that has never heard of blogs before. (Jon AKA Connect Four Loser was the only one I’ve ever told who gave me an awesome, excited response, and actually followed up by reading my blog. Hi Jon!) And have you tried to explain to someone what a blog is? It’s nearly impossible and they just can’t wrap their brains around it. But seriously, who’s never heard of a blog before?
3. What do you do?
I hate the fact that you have to answer this question with your job. Like, that’s all I do? I live, I write, I play, I read, I watch, I drink. But no, I have to say I work for a construction company.
4. Oh, so you were a civil engineering major? Because remember when you used to be so into dinosaurs?
No, no I wasn’t. I was indeed a geology major with a concentration in biology. Um, yeah, so this is where I have to admit my utter defeat as to never becoming a world renowned paleontologist, because in the senior yearbook for that stupid questionnaire I put as my future goal: To discover the first baby T-rex fossil. For all the world to see. Yeah, I was am a major dork.
5. Are you seeing anyone?
LOL!
6. Do you still play the saxophone?
This question will probably only come from fellow former band geeks and chances are they will have given up on their instruments as well. If I get drunk enough (hello open bar!) I’ll answer with a: “The only instrument I play these days is…see answer #5.” Of course in normal conversations questions don’t have numbers so they won’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll get a good laugh out of it and that’s all that matters.
7. Isn’t it a little warm for argyle?
Naturally I want to look my best, and I’ve already picked out my outfit, and yes it involves an argyle sweater. I don’t care that it’s technically still summer, I want to look hot! And with an argyle sweater on, I’m sure I will.
8. How did you get so good looking?
This is the question I expect to get most often. I think I’m going to simply answer by flashing the double guns and making that click click sound with my tongue against the roof of my mouth. I’ve been practicing it in the mirror for the past few weeks and I think I’m getting pretty good.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Good luck Craig! My reunion is next month, please let us know how your reunion went. I am sure to give the Biggest Loser a new meaning when I go to mine….
September 8th, 2009 at 8:06 am
#5. “You mean the ghost of Mr Peterson over in the corner? Phew, I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
#7: A dear friend of mine got this student comment on his teaching evals one semester: “He looks hot in sweaters.” Love that ambiguity!
#8. Follow it up with a wink and an index-finger-pistol-shot, and you’re good to go.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Good luck, Craig. Have fun! I personally hate these things and I only go to see how much better I am than everyone else.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I never bothered with my high school reunion. In fact, I’m still a little annoyed I allowed any of those mutha*@$&res to “friend” me on Facebook. Good luck with yours, though.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:20 am
I missed my twenty year reunion three years ago, but I may try to make the 25th. Really, though, so many of them are born-again evangelicals (It *is* South Carolina, after all) that I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:22 am
lol Jere.. It is “interesting” how people you never got along with in high school suddenly want to be Facebook friends.
Romy and Michelle would never Facebook friend those bitches!
September 8th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Craiggers, if they don’t know the answers to these question, then lie to them. What the hell? tell them you’re living on Manhattan, but only occasionally because you have to spend weeks at a time in digs in South America, and China and Mozambique. And when you go, you are always accompanied by your assistant, Gunter, the German with the body of a bodybuilder, the mind of a college professor and the sexual skills and appetite of a porn star in hear. I mean, really, they’re not gonna see you again for 5 years, right? So who cares what they think anyway.
HUGS…
September 8th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Like Jere, I’ve never been to a reunion. My 25th is coming up, and I intend to skip that one as well. I also avoid most people on facebook. The only friends I have there are Puntabufriends and that is fine with me.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I’m going with Polt’s answer. LOL Brilliant.
I never went to any highschool reunion (helps that I live 2400 miles away) but really, if I haven’t made any effort to contact you in the last 20 years, I don’t want to see you now. To avoid having people track me down on Facebook, I simply changed my first name slightly and don’t have a picture of my face, therefore if you search by the full name I used in high school you find three black women in South Carolina. Gee, wonder which one is me?
As an aside I’m in my new office and my monitor is nearly as big as my TV at home. Holy hell, everything is sooooo big.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I skipped my tenth, but went to my *gasp/shudder/vom* twentieth. It was all kinds of meh. I hope you have fun at yours. I don’t think you need to worry about any of those questions. Obviously you’ll be the cutest/funniest/smartest guy there : ).
September 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am
The tenth reunion, I found, was filled with photos of spouses and kids, the new house, and how they’ll all soon be VP of the company they work for.
later reunions had more pot bellies, less hair, and talk of divorces, and griping over money for college funds, and they’re STILL soon gonna be VP of that company.
But then that’s just been my experiences.
HUGS…
September 8th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Tam: “Everything is sooooo big.” Yeah, I get that a lot…
I haven’t gone to any of the reunions, but I’m going to help organize the 25th. With the onset of facebook, it’s a hell of a lot easier to stalk people. I mean, ‘track them down’…
Already people that I really want to see have said they’d come, so it’ll be fun.
It’ll likely be on the beaches of Lake Michigan in July, which is just so damn beautiful that it’ll make up for all the ugly aging that we’ve endured. lol And we’re inviting upper and lower classmen that we hung out with, so it won’t just be us. It’ll be a rockin’ beach party. Woohoo! Alcohol isn’t allowed on the beach, so we’ll have an after-party that night so we can all get wasted and start hearing the *real* answers to all of those questions! 
September 8th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Craig: How did you graduate a year ahead of me? You’re only a month older than me.
September 8th, 2009 at 10:54 am
My 20th reunion was a clambake that turned ino a massive quarters game, enormous amount of beer consumed by all. Perfect. Hope you have as much fun as I did Craiger.
September 8th, 2009 at 10:55 am
We might have had different cut off dates for our classes. Were you usually the oldest in class? Because I was always the youngest. So I might have just been in the year ahead of you. I certainly didn’t skip a grade.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Our cut off date was the beginning of September, so while I was probably on the older half, I definitely wasn’t close to being oldest.
I don’t know whether I will go to my tenth year reunion.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I vote for not going. Honestly, I think the ones who go are the ones still living near their hometown. If you do go, I think you should wear a huge fur jacket and sunglasses all night.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Yeah, ours was the middle of December.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:33 am
My theory on high school friends = people I happened to live in the same neighborhood with for 4 years when I was a teenager.
My theory on almost any other group of friends = people I chose to associate with through my own decisions (re: college, adult living location, jobs).
I gather that people who go to high school in the same neighborhood they spent their childhood in feel differently about the situation than I do, but I only lived in my high school’s boundaries for 3 years, I don’t really know or care about those people.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I feel about the same. While I live in a small state, I don’t feel the need to associate with people who I happened to go to high school with 20+ years ago. If they were important to me, I would still be associating with them. I haven’t even run into anyone I went to high school with in at least 10 years, possibly longer.
I’m not saying they are bad people, some of them were quite nice. I just don’t see the need of gathering with them to “catch up”. It’s been this long since I’ve seen them, I suspect, I could go longer.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:55 am
#1 – I moved back home to help my Mom with Dad. He’s doing great, last week he made stool without any help from me.
#2 – Elbow deep in Dad’s stool.
#3 – Go to work, come home, change Depends, …the usual.
I promise they won’t ask anymore questions after number 2.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I know your Dad is fully continent, just trying to help with answers.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Well, if you’ve been keeping up with the Puntabulous Workout, your guns, and your liver, should be good and ready.
September 8th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
#5 – Well kinda, he gets out next June
September 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
LOL @ Mark
September 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Mark: #5 was brilliant! lol
September 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Hilarious Mark.
My family all still live where I grew up and have been there for oooooh, nearly a century. So my parents still see the parents of people I grew up with but really, our lives are so different we have zero in common, especially with those that stayed in our isolated farming community. I can’t relate to their lives nor they mine. It would be easy enough for anyone to track me down if they were that interested since my family is still there, just call and get my e-mail. *shrug* But I’m not really interested in talking to you so don’t bother.
September 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Mark is funny.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Mark is teh funny.
HUGS….
September 8th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Just lie like everyone else.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Craig, be yourself, you are a shining star!
September 8th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I was disappointed by my 10 year reunion a few years ago. In hindsight I am not sure what I expected it to be. Many of the people in my class have scattered all over the country. None of the people I knew who stayed within a few hours of our hometown were planning to attend. I did not have tons of friends in high school, and had kept up with the few people I was close with.
Many of the guys I had considered attractive in high school no longer were. Some people looked really old. It was a little depressing. I did have a few interesting conversations, but I left as soon as I could. I am not sure if I would go back for a 20 year reunion.
It is interesting that I have more “Facebook friends” from high school than I had friends in high school. I am “out” on Facebook, so at least I got the benefit of feeling like I came out to my high school class. No one has seemed to mind. These days, it is probably cool to have a gay friend.
Try to have a good time. If you were more popular than me in HS you may have better odds of seeing people you may actually want to talk to. At least you can enjoy the open bar.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Dave: No you don’t.
Craig: I’m super excited for MY high school reunion! Can’t wait to hear about yours!
Jere: I’m still BFFs with my high school BFFs. I text/call them both a lot.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:08 am
Good luck with it! I think we have them here but I’ve never been to one. (High) school feels so long ago now. Be interesting to how how the people have changed. Lots will be married with sprogs etc.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:08 am
Interesting to ’see how’, even!
September 9th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I love Polt’s idea. Lie differently to everyone – see how many crazy stories you can come up with! I went to my 10th and enjoyed it. My husband’s 10th was terrible. I didn’t know any of them, but I could tell that none of them had done any maturing at all since high school and it might as well have been a homecoming dance in the gym with the cliquish way everyone was acting. I have my 20th next year. Should be interesting to see how Facebook affects it. I was a band geek too!!!!!
September 10th, 2009 at 3:00 am
I went to my school reunion a few years ago and had a great time! (I also drank like it was up to me to keep Jack Daniels in business, but that’s what they’re for, right?) For #5, print out all the gravatars of your readers (they’re a handy wallet size, see) and when asked you could unfold them, comedy credit-card-file style and tell your friends you’re having a hard time choosing. Argyle is too alluring to tie yourself to just one man, after all.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Don’t bother with class reunions. The popular kids are still the same snarky assholes they were in high school. It’s all postering. I laughed my ass off when the popular blond in class showed up with her ex husband (also from the class) even though they split a few years ago after he fathered a child with some chick.