If you are only as old as you feel, my AARP card should be arriving any day now.
The various aches and pains I wake up with every morning are a grab bag of entertainment. Getting out of bed is like a check list for a space shuttle launch: Back pain? Check. Roll over too fast and cause shooting pain in my shoulder? Check. Lay completely still for five minutes to convince myself I can stand up? Check.* Even worse, I walk like Red Foxx from “Sanford & Son” for the first hour I’m up every day. This leads me to yell “Lamont, ya big dummy” at extremely random times, so it does have its benefits.
*This doesn’t even include the self inflicted pain I put myself through. Example one: I suddenly decided to take up tennis for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. The final image of that experiment: Me, flat on my back, racket no where in sight with a rapidly swelling ankle and mumbling “Where am I?” Example numero B: I fully expect to wake up some Saturday morning after a Friday night bender to discover my liver has moved out, leaving only a tiny little letter that says “You should have treated me better…”
Aches and pains aside, little has made me feel older than receiving the invitation to my 20 year high school reunion.
Twenty years, how did that happen? If I had been born the day I graduated, I would now be older than I was then.* Due to my job, I routinely talk to kids who where born after 1991 and can drive a car. This is always followed by a double take. Evidently I’ve become that guy who thinks the world should adjust to my personal time line, meaning nothing after, oh, about 1996 counts. So these kids are perpetually three to four years old in my mind. I desperately do not want to be that guy, it leads to being pissed at anyone younger than 25, hating any music released in the last 15 years, wearing pants hiked up to my nipples and deciding Denny’s and Golden Corral are the two best restaurants ever. (If anyone ever hears me say, “Back in the good old days…” please feel free to poke me right in the eye hole.) Obviously, I need a reality check, so I decided to attend.
*This sounds like either the beginning of the most complicated word problem ever (all that’s missing is a train departing from point A) or the plot of a new “Freaky Friday” style Disney movie where I have to live life as a 17 year old and learn the error of my ways.
I skipped out on the 10 year job, so I didn’t really have any idea what to expect. According to the ridiculous amount of bad movies I have seen, this is the top five things to expect:
1-Through a series of wacky mishaps the football team replays the big game against their rivals;
2-Embarassment over where life has taken me will force me to lie about my life and I will tell everyone I invented post it notes;
3-I will attempt to hide my lucrative career as a hit man; shenanigans will ensue. Bonus: This is accompanied by a soundtrack of really good 80s songs. No, wise acre, that is not an oxymoron;
4-The super hot girl/dude from high school turns out to be gay;
5-The evening culminates with someone getting it on in the locker room.
That’s it, that’s the list.*
*If you can identify all of those references…you need to get out more. Seriously, go outside, the fresh air is good for you.
I don’t think any sane individual is putting a lot of stock in that list, so I decided the best bet was going into it open minded. That’s not entirely true: After deciding I lacked the time to get in mind boggling shape, the luck to win the lottery or the funds to go buy an awesome sports car and rent a trophy wife, open minded was pretty much the only option remaining. Let’s break it down, running diary style:
5:00 p.m.: The “social gathering” portion of the evening starts at 7:00. Evidently there was a picnic and tour of the new high school earlier in the day and there was approximately (-52.46)% chance I was attending that. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been back in a public school since graduating; the entire experience is unpleasant. I immediately feel like I’m doing something wrong by being there and expect the jerk vice principal to spring around every corner to yell at me. I don’t need that kind of stress.
Only two hours remain to kick off, and I am thinking my “open minded” game plan may have some flaws. I decide to combine it with plan B-back up from my close friends Mr. Miller Lite and Mr. Crown.
7:15 p.m.: My above mentioned friends advise me it would be a bad idea to show up on time and I agree. The meeting is happening at a local bar and grill and I commence to circle the parking lot three times before deciding everything is cool, not to not bail and to go on in. I’m not sure what warning signs I expected from a few laps around the lot: People running from the building in terror? A giant flaming finger of god pointing away from the building? Regardless, I am reassured enough to go on in.
7:20 p.m.: I wander into the back room and am recognized immediately. This I was not expecting. It leads to me giving the stiffest hug of all time a an awkward round of small talk where I say for the fist time what will become my mantra for the evening: “Nope, I’m not married. Nope, no kids.” I am 94.62% certain I am the only individual in that specific demographic in attendance; I feel like a rebel.
7:25: Someone has went to the trouble of setting out numerous copies of the high school newspaper on a table. I realize this is shocking, so hold onto your Fedora: I was on the newspaper and yearbook staff in high school. I know, I know, I seem like such a cool cat now… Armed with my freshly magic markered name tag, I spend a healthy amount of time looking this over and reading a few of my stories. My judgement of the quality, 20 years later: Oh, so bad. Laughingly bad. However, they are also somewhat charming in that “My eight year old colored a picture for me” kind of way. My mom would totally hang these on the fridge door. In fact, there may still be some up there.
7:50 to 8:30: This time is spent milling around in the back of the room and randomly touching base with people here and there. People continue to fill in the room slowly and here is my main observation: From the neck up, everyone looks nearly exactly the same, only a little older. Watching people walk in that you haven’t seen in 20 years and still recognizing them is an amazingly trippy experience. It’s like one of those science fiction stories where the aliens have replaced everyone with their exact double, only they are just slightly off. At this point I realize I may have stumbled onto something and need to stay on my toes. Or, you know, stop drinking for the evening.
8:42: I run into a guy who spent the night at my house when we were about 10. He recounted a story of how we spent Saturday afternoon trying to chop a tree down with a brick. Hey, I lived in the middle of nowhere, don’t judge me. We had four TV channels; three if the wind was blowing the wrong direction.
8:55: I am repeating my mantra of having no kids when a gentleman tells me he has five and he would happily give me child number four. I laugh; his wife stops me by saying, “No we’re serious” with a slightly frenzied look. Cue the awkward silence.
9:05: The topic of who from are class has died comes up. I have set the over/under at three and took the over. The final tally: Two. It’s a good thing for me gambling isn’t legal.
9:15: Someone tells me I was the last person they would have expected to see with a beer in my hand. I can’t decide it I feel proud or insulted by this.
9:40: I emphatically tell a former classmate she looks exactly the same. I think she is flattered…until I decide to share my replaced by alien pod people theory. To her credit, she politely laughs before bolting for the other side of the room. That, kids, is my cue to exit stage right.
By 10:00 I have made my way around the room and said goodbye to most everyone there. All in all, it was a pretty positive experience, the kind that renews my basic faith that most people are inherently good.
Listen, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck*. I understand that for a 90 minute period anyone can come across friendly and accepting. I get that people might be trying to remember who the hell I am in there head or won’t remember a bit of our conversation after I walk away. Still, there is something reassuring about be greeted by someone you haven’t seen in two decades with a smile and a handshake and genuinely feeling glad to them.
*Where does that phrase even come from? I feel like it should be racist to somebody, but I have no clue what race or ethnic group I am offending by using it. Someone please fill me in.
The big question: Will I be back for year 30? Right now I would say yes, emphatically. Besides, that gives me 10 years to work out the sports car and trophy wife situation.
