One trait I possess is an incredible memory with strict attention to detail. You know the old saying “The only thing an Irishman can hold better that his booze is a grudge!” Some of these reasons I have emanate from our class’s twentieth reunion.
We had a good time for the most part. There was an open bar which made it possible to put up with the horrid wedding DJ they hired to keep us busy, God forbid we actually interacted with the people we were there to interact with. However it was really very tasteful. It was at a nice hotel, good food, and they didn’t plan it on Thanksgiving.
That’s right my young readers. High school class reunions are often scheduled during the Thanksgiving Holiday break. This brainstorm stems from the assumption that most of the graduates will be in town for Thanksgiving. And all the people that were smart enough to get out of their hometowns and find themselves can just, again, go fuck themselves.
At my twentieth reunion one of the more revolting and insulting thing was the cute little name tags they give you. Isn’t it embarrassing enough that you actually have to read them to figure out just who the fuck this dickhead is that you’re talking to?
But this time the graduates that were diligent enough to study hard enough to be “Honor Society” level school darlings had big Stars on their name tags! Big bright blue stars! This was twenty fucking years ago in high school and you’re still fucked up enough to think that makes you special in some way! In-fucking-credible! I would loved to have known this in advance. I would have come with my tax returns stapled to my suit jacket.
I can’t complain, however. Compared to a lot of folks there I guess I had aged quite well. Of course being the cynical bastard that I am I took great pleasure in seeing the guys I couldn’t stand end up looking like fat old gasbags. At the ripe old age of thirty-eight! Oh the enjoyment of seeing one the biggest assholes I ever met lose his hair! I know that’s awful, but as you probably have guessed “nice” isn’t really my writing style.
My wife was wearing an original “Betsy Johnson” dress, she looked great. I had on a custom made Irish linen suit, no tie and sandals. It was fucking August, I get hot when it’s August. I need to dress light and was comfortable as hell even though most of the guys there were wearing their best “suit and tie”. I was quick to notice that quite a few of the guys that were dressed like bankers couldn’t keep their eyes off my wife.
She was quite popular on the dance floor that night. Being the gentleman that I am I was able to refrain from asking their wives to dance. I was too busy telling the DJ that he sucked. He tried to explain to me that what he was doing is pretty much standard fare for DJ’s, and he was right. But it still didn’t stop me from voicing my distaste for the corny proceedings (Oh, c’mon the music sucked). I’m not crazy about dancing anymore, anyways. In my youth I loved to dance but watching the “show” that night was much more amusing. There wasn’t much all that much dancing because of the fucking wedding DJ they hired for some stupid reason. They were so fucking lame I can’t even think of a witty put-down.
I was actually asked to recommend a list of songs that were popular with our class, pre-reunion. So, naturally I put down a list of songs we used to rock out to like crazy-assed teenagers should. I foolishly thought we might be dancing to these particular songs. Instead the wedding DJs’ played these songs during dinner and then proceeded to play nothing but techno “house” shit for us to dance to.
It was just great being the one responsible for hearing “Ironman” while we were trying to catch up over dinner. Trying to explain this to these fucking shit for brains Dj’s was impossible. These shitheads were pure “wedding” and they were sticking to it.
They then started playing these retarded wedding games that sucked the life right out of the room.
The parties we had back when we were young and all together were much different than this crud. I think we would all have had a much better time if we had recreated the same atmosphere. An atmosphere it was comfortable seeing these people in. I’m talking, of course, a live band. A good band, like we always had in high school. Low lighting, loud music and lots of booze. This causes dancing to break out, and dancing, in a lot of cases leads to getting laid. Now that’s a fucking party! I felt like I had just left the Weinstein Bar Mitzvah when this tragedy was over.
You could always tell the poor bastards that end up coming alone. They are either the creepy looking guys nobody remembers or they’re the ones having a great fucking time dancing with the ladies you came with. Oh wives love to flirt when they know their husband is watching. And dancing is a great way to show that “thing” off ladies, you all know that.
You’ll see some miffed husbands (‘cause that “thing” was looking good). “I was only dancing.” You never want to dance with me,” she’ll say with that certain little pout. I’ve seen women get their husbands so worked up using this method they ended up humping in the parking lot! Guess it works.
I had one lad I had known since the tender age of thirteen greet me as if we were old friends and he seemed giddy as a school girl to see me. Wasn’t this the guy that always had a sneer and an insult ready for me? Veiled or not they were insults and digs. Time is a very strange concept that has very odd consequences.
On one hand there was a man that I had been very close with during our high school years and almost ten years after. We were contacted by he and his wife before the reunion. We made plans to sit at the same table together, and we got together for drinks at their house the day before the reunion. And yet this “friend” for some reason saw fit to humiliate me at the end of the event for all to see.
He had been telling me throughout the evening that some people would be going to his house for an “after-party/pool party”. I was pretty smashed at the end of night, I had planned on it. That’s why my wife booked us a room at the very hotel in which the event was being held.
At the very tail-end of the night I was discussing with this person, out loud mind you, just how in the hell we were going to be able to get to the pool party. We were at a large table that was full of classmates and their spouses.
“Pat, there’s no party… he said with a wry grin, shaking his head like you would do to someone that was a confused pathetic drunk. He turned and walked away still slowly shaking his head. It made me feel like I was acting like a fool and I was the only one in the room not aware of it.
It’s not that you weren’t in on the joke, and the joke wasn’t on you. You were the joke.
Had I been set up? Was I the subject of some elaborate ambush? Of course it’s ridiculous to even think that. So what could the reason for this possibly be? Things seemed to be going so well.
Maybe there was something I had said the previous day during our visit to their house – who knows? Maybe it was the fact that when we were in school he always had a girlfriend and a nice car. I hardly ever did. And he never let me forget it. It was kid stuff and he used to rub it in my face every chance he got.
But now the shoe’s on the other foot. My wife and I had been married for ten years; he made an off hand comment that he was amazed that we had lasted this long. And I guess it didn’t help when I pulled up to his house in my (mint condition) 1974 Jaguar E-Type convertible.
But seriously, what the fuck is going on here? We both loved nice cars and hot rods when we were in high school. We used to take road trips to exotic car dealerships just to gawk at the sports cars. That was one thing we definitely had in common in those days, our love for cool cars. We had even talked lightheartedly about co-owning something nice one day. But he always had a nice car and I “did not”.
I’d honestly be thrilled if my “friend” told me he was driving a new Ferrari. Of course I’d be jealous! With my love for cars I’d be the first one to let him know! But it would be a “proud” kind of jealousy. As long as the fucker let me take it for a ride.
So my faithful readers, just what would make this person direct his ire and petty dislikes towards me, an old friend?
I have a hypothesis. I’m being brutally honest right now and may really regret writing this, but hey…
During our short visit to our “friends” house the day previous to the reunion this so called friend of mine pulled me aside and said “Dude, your wife’s a stone fox and your car is absolutely gorgeous.” This made me feel extremely uncomfortable. He was saying this as if I had been fishing for these compliments all day. They certainly didn’t come across as genuine; he may not have sneered quite so hard if they were.
Our lives were not a contest, not to me anyways. If there ever was any competition I would have gladly conceded the win right after high school. It’s sad really.
The trophy’s yours, you win my friend.
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