The High School Reunion - Part One (The Good & The Bad)

My 10-year high school reunion will take place today, and I’ll more than likely be going. The reaction from most of my friends that didn’t attend high school with me is, “What the hell? Why?” which makes me think that either my life appears in such a shambles now that they assume that my time in high school was also a living hell, or they attended the school from Carrie.

The truth is, my time in high school wasn’t that bad. Sure, I had a constant erection and wore a haircut that doomed me to chastity, but I had friends I liked, parents who loved me, was rail-thin from a Dexedrine prescription and spent every Friday colossally fucked up. Though my popularity wasn’t off the charts, I was well known for scoring a popular column in the school paper (where I used big words and made dick jokes for no pay, preparing me for a life of exactly that) and scoring a perfect 1600 on the SATs (the College Board has since changed the top score to 2400, rendering 1600 a tard’s score, Deliverance-ing my life’s one accomplishment). That combined with a pretty solid GPA meant that, senior year, I had every reason to believe I would get the world by the tail and wrap it around, pull it down and put it in my pocket. Oh, young John…there’s just so much I need to warn you about. And yet, tragically, I cannot.

The twin pillars of so many weekends that I can't remember. I'm joking, of course. I just had a two-year cough. — The twin pillars of so many weekends that I can't remember. I'm joking, of course. I just had a two year cough.

While the scenario of being drunk in a room with a bunch of people I barely talked to 10 years ago and haven’t talked to since is somewhat fascinating to me, Facebook has taken a lot of the thrill out of the prospect. Previously, I would have attended my reunion just to see which guys got fat and/or went bald and which women that I used to think were so hot that they walked on water and shat Twinkies blossomed into overweight alcoholics trapped in loveless marriages. Now I can just look at their Facebook profiles to satisfy my curiosity. And while a lot of people have gotten bald and fat, God help me, I can’t bring myself to gloat. If anything, Facebook does nothing but depress me further as people post status messages like “In Rio for work for two weeks…I LOVE MY JOB!” I know there is a “like” button on Facebook that allows you show your approval of the self-important drivel your asshat buddies post, but I’m still waiting for a Facebook application with an “infect with full-blown AIDS” button. Maybe I’ll get lucky and some pretty gal will show up with a massive shiner, claim she “fell down the stairs” and give the whole room someone to point at. But I don’t like my odds.

Probably the only time Lisa KUDrow gave me a WOODrow. And that was a long way for a short laugh.

Yep, the more I roll it around my head, the more I think my game plan will be to find my friends, grab a beer, hide behind it and Romy and Michelle (aka make up outrageous lies about the level of success I’ve enjoyed) the whole evening. Then, I will just wait for an ugly duckling that blossomed into a perfect 10 (though I can settle for a 9.5) with a well-paying job to march up to me, declare that she’s never stopped loving me ever since reading one of my witty school newspaper columns rife with self-deprecating humor and state that, if I want to spend my life mooching off her fortune as I play Mr. Mom to the half-Greek mongrels I sire with her, it’s cool.

Yeah, I’d be cool with that going down. It’d make for a really romantic scene, actually. As long as I don’t blurt out then and there that I’d leave her for someone with bigger breasts.

Part Two, a summary of the reunion, to come next week.