The Modernish Father

I get very few chances where I can legitimately tell The Wife that I was correct and she was wrong about something beforehand. So when I can, I generally take great delight in telling her so. Except when I’m correct about foretelling my own misery and suffering.

For the past year or so, a great debate erupted between the two of us concerning our 10-year high school reunion. She was convinced that it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread – a heart-warming convocation of friends sharing memories and stories of days long past. I was convinced that it would suck five ways ’til Friday.

Our reunion was last weekend. I was right.

For the past year, I had been trying to get out of going in every way I could imagine. I tried asking. I tried pleading. I tried unilaterally deciding. I contemplated breaking my own legs or disappearing the night before. Alas, I failed and now I will bear the scars of that failure for the rest of my life.

My wife’s argument for going was primarily the fact that we both were members of the same graduating class. Apparently it would have “looked weird” if she had showed up without me. I don’t know if she was worried that people would think that she was lying about being married or if they’d think that we were separated, but it looks like I’m committed to going to these stupid things for the rest of my life.

Slow times at B’wood High

The blessed event was split up into two soirées – a three-hour barbecue for families at a municipal park next to our old school and a more formal three-hour event for the adults in the evening. All told, six hours of being trapped with people I haven’t bothered to keep up with for the past decade.

The Wife’s primary argument was blasted to smithereens immediately. Upon reaching the sign-in table at the lunch event, the person charge of signing us in all processed The Wife with a smile and gave her a badge with her senior picture crappily photocopied next to her name. I was being ignored and felt left out, so I asked if I could get my name tag too.

And then, in a moment which pretty much erased anything I thought I had accomplished in four years of high school, the lady asked if I too had gone to our high school. I thought about making up an identity at that point, but I just sheepishly said, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did” and gave her my name.

I should have taken the hint and left at that point, but we were responsible for giving someone else a ride home, so I stayed. In retrospect, it would have been perfectly appropriate to have runs for the hills.

For the next three hours I pretty much just sat around and listened to The Boy cry about having to be there and how badly he wanted to leave. The Wife was no help – she bolted every five minutes or so to talk with one of her numerous drill team friends in attendance. Of course, nearly none of my friends were there (one of my reasons for not wanting to go), but fortunately one of my best friends from school was willing to sit with me for most of the afternoon.

There were some awkward conversations with the ex-girlfriend and people who weren’t really my friends in high school, but all in all, it was pretty uneventful. Everyone pretty much looked the same – some slightly bloated, some with less hair, etc… No huge surprises.

A Hard Day’s Night

I had expected the afternoon thing to be pretty low-key. With it being outside and with kids, I wasn’t expecting a lavish broadway production or anything. Besides, countless television shows and movies have taught me that the real reunion takes place in the evening.

As my lone friend and I decided, the evening party was just like a junior high dance. Everyone just kind of stood around and made awkward small talk while dance music blared and thumped at unacceptably high levels. And theme of the dance was definitely ‘Disappointment’.

There was absolutely zero structure to the entire evening. It was just another three hours of standing around and talking with the same people we had talked to for three hours earlier in the day. No one made any presentations. No one spoke to the crowd. Heck, no one even said “Thanks for coming, drive home safely” at the end of the night.

It was BYOB. Need I say anymore? Nothing says classy like a roomful of bored late-20-somethings with enough cheap booze to float a battleship. Why in the hell was I expected to dress up and fork over $55 for a ticket when the guy next to me was hauling in a cooler full of Keystone?

There was a giant cake that looked fairly decent. It sat in the box for most of the evening. I think someone finally grabbed a slice with about twenty minutes to go. There were a couple of fruit trays that looked pretty suspect. The Wife found some chicken salad sandwiches that had been sitting out for three hours and, in a fit of pregnancy hormone-induced insanity, actually ate some.

For the most the week I had been lamenting the fact that I hadn’t gone to high school in the 80s. I love 80s music and the best part of any reunion movie is always the music they play. I just knew that the grudge rock and dance crap of the 90s would have the same effect. I needn’t have worried though – the DJ didn’t bother playing anything from when we were in high school. He just played some thumping crap that he and his garage band buddies had no doubt slapped together. I don’t even think there was any music – it was just bass pulses assaulting us continuously.

Where’s the escape key?!?

Once again, The Wife was of no help. She stayed occupied on one side of the room talking with her drill team friends. After about twenty minutes, I had caught up with everyone I was interested in. I was left to stand around and generally be uncomfortable for most of the evening while playing a real-life version of Minesweeper.

I dated exactly two girls before I met The Wife – one for about 2.5 hours and the other for six years. Both were in attendance. The short-termer was content to just glare at me a few times throughout the course of the evening. The long-termer was insistent on chatting with me as if nothing had changed since she dumped me in college.

To top it all off, an estranged relative who was a teacher at my high school was there – the only teacher there.

In short, I did a lot of roaming around. It was hard to not look like a weirdo, because I never really had anyone to go across the room and talk to. I was constantly on the move, like a rabbit looking for a hole to hide in. I stood by silently while The Wife chatted with people who didn’t know I existed. I went to the bathroom (twice). I poked my head in the wedding reception next door. I finally just gave up and sat in a chair for the final hour or so.

Needless to say, it was a magical evening.

The final insult

Prior to the reunion, the event organizers (a term I use loosely) set up a message board group so classmates could bother each other with idle gossip and mindless banter. I didn’t sign up for it, but The Wife did. She reported that the following Monday, a message was sent out to everyone declaring the reunion “a smashing success”.

A SMASHING SUCCESS!?? As compared to what? An outbreak of the plague? New Coke? World War I? Shaq Fu? I imagine that most cow-tipping expeditions are more elaborately planned than the marathon of uncomfortable boredom I had to live through.

But, The Wife got to gab with her drill team friends so I’ll be there again in 2017. I wouldn’t want her to have to “look weird” without her husband. Ugh.