Ah, the good ole’ class reunion. We’ve all tuned into the Hallmark channel a time or two just to find some sappy retelling of the classic “class reunion rekindles forgotten love” story. Just gag me already. I really don’t get what all the fuss is about. Maybe I’m just a bit too far removed from that scene. I mean really… do any of us actually care about the same shit we cared about back in high school? If I wanted to see all my classmates again, I would have kept in better contact over the years. All the personalities, the cliques, the stress, it’s not really something I care to revisit anytime soon. Could you imagine?

“Hey, Billy! Remember that time you pissed your pants on the bus during the dairy farm field trip and the entire class laughed?”

“Why no Jimmy. I’ve spent years in therapy and thousands of dollars on a psychiatrist trying to repress that memory, but how fun of you to bring it back up!”

Let’s see, we had the jocks who seemed to just cruise through their four years with that “too cool for school” mantra. There were the cheerleaders, which I tended to avoid. The rich kids who could do no wrong, probably because mommy and daddy were boosters for the local sports clubs, and then you had the rest of us. I guess you’d find me in the Freaks and Geeks section. If you don’t get the reference, check out the show here.   It was a short-lived one season masterpiece from the ’90s based around a unique group of kids in high school during the 80s. Great stuff!

Back at the reunion, you’re having more fun than you can safely stomach. At least, something is making you sick and it’s not the smell of gym socks left in a locker for two semesters.  Perhaps it’s the sheer awkwardness that comes with seeing your teenage crush who is now balding, on his third marriage, and running a failing used car dealership. Or better yet, you could reminiscence with some old high school bullies who completely gloss over ripping your schoolwork to shreds on the daily or shoving you in the aforementioned gym sock filled locker.  Or maybe it’s being asked to dance by that kid that smelled like milk and pulled on your hair in the middle of class every freakin’ day.  I mean, why wouldn’t we want to subject ourselves to such a blissful evening?

All sarcasm aside, I wouldn’t be completely against a walk down memory lane again, but it’s not at the top of my list. And yes, I’m completely aware that there are quite a few people out there that absolutely loved high school and would waste 1 of their 3 wishes from a genie on having the chance to relive the glory days that were those 4 fateful years. To say a lot of people peaked in high school would be an understatement. Okay, yeah, so that walk down memory lane may not be worth the calories after all.

I mean, what about the people who simply couldn’t wait to get out of high school? For these folks – and by these folks, I mean me – reunions are a whole different animal. And seriously, back to the Hallmark movie thing. Do those moments ever really happen? They’re always the same. Way back in high school, the jock is dared to ask out the ugly duckling girl, and she accepts just to have it blow up in her face. Then 20 years later she’s on the cover of Cosmo and he’s managing a Waffle House in small-town South Carolina. They meet up again at the famed reunion just to have him profess his true feelings. He was a victim of peer pressure back n the day, you see, and he’s pined after her all these years. She looks deep into his eyes as they dance and is hypnotized by the depth of his feelings and the beat of his heart, and well, the rest is Hallmark history with a wedding in the works before the weekend is out. I guess if you put it that way, I can kinda see the appeal of these reunions. I mean they’re just the conduit to one’s true love and a happily ever… nope, I’m sorry, just can’t say it with a straight face.

More likely that whole scenario would play out with her getting drunk and mocking the people who realized too late that in the “real world – adult version” they’re no longer the “in crowd” and she ends up going home with the bartender. To be fair though, he was awfully cute.