Randomly Rambunctious Reunion Remarks

So let’s just say that one of your good friends has a younger sister.  And that younger sister is really smoking hot.  And has the major hots for you.

What do you do? 

On one hand, the chance to hook up with the younger sister is one of those fantasies that every guy¹ has.  She’s hot.  She’s into you.  It’s also kinda naughty.  Fun naughty.

On the other hand, if your buddy finds out, he’s going to absolutely destroy you, and you might lose a friend.

Is getting some fine ass for an evening worth giving up a friend for?  Probably not, but it sure is intriguing.

This conundrum is similar to the one I faced in deciding to go to my 15 yr high school reunion.  On one hand, there is a real allure to going.  The benefits would be in seeing how all the hot chicks turned out and whether all the former jocks are now fat and bald.  On the other hand, do I really want to wreck my image of high school?  I mean, I’m pretty sure a good number of us disliked our high school experience, and it’s kind of fun to hold on to all that bitterness.  Wouldn’t it suck to find out that most of those people we hated actually turned out to be fairly decent people in the end?  I mean, talk about killing a buzz. 

So, the question I faced was, is it worth risking giving up my bitterness to have the chance to having a great laugh (or 5?). 

I took a risk, and I was not disappointed.

 

 

• Reunion awkwardness can be encapsulated in a single word: Bathroom.  Over the course of a 4 or 5 hour reunion, you eventually have to go to the bathroom.  This also means that you will invariably run into people that that you haven’t seen for 15 years in said bathroom.  Nothing is more awkward then having the hey-nice-to-see-you-what-are-you-up-to-conversation while draining the dragon.  The awkwardness is especially heightened by the fact that the people you generally run into there, are the ones you least want to run into.  I had this experience.   While standing in adjacent urinals talking to a dude who I really didn’t want to have any part of, I briefly considered “accidentally” peeing on his foot just for the fun of it.

 

• I really really really wanted to get a picture of myself with the prom king.  Life has not been good to him, especially after 15 years of heavy drinking and smoking.  Unfortunately, I don’t know him at all, and didn’t think it was all that appropriate to be like – “Hey, mind if I get a picture with you Mr-really-ugly-former-prom-king-dude?”  That said, I’m sure I can dig up a picture of him someplace and photoshop myself next to him for my own personal edification it’ll be a nice memory to keep.  In case you were wondering, he now looks a lot like this guy:

 

 

•  Speaking of prom kings.  In the middle of the event, one of the organizers got on a microphone and announced, “Attention everyone, it is now time for us to choose our 15 year reunion King and Queen.  When everyone walked in, we wrote your name on a piece of paper, and put the men in one bag and women in the other.  We’re going to pick some names now and they’ll be our King and Queen!”  My thoughts at that moment: if there is a God in heaven looking down upon me, PLEASE DO NOT pick me! Please! PLEAAAASE.  I pulled out every jewish prayer I could remember and said them as quickly as I could in my head.  Last thing I want to be is King of the washed-up-sort-of-old-high-school-reunionites.  That’s like coming in last place at an ugly contest – there is no glory in that.

 

• I was really fucking lucky God heard my prayers and I was not chosen as the Reunion King…. or Queen, for that matter.  No, they picked some random dude who I only knew from high school as being some random dude.  The amusing thing?  They gave him a tiara-crown type thing and over the microphone, the MC announced “Congratulations, now stick that in your hair and present yourself to your court!”  The only problem?  He’s bald.

 

• One of ABFF’s former flames came up to me to chat and catch up.  I didn’t know her all that well, but I can definitely say that she did NOT look good.  Later in the evening, in a classic moment when discussing her, ABFF said, “She’s been ridden hard and put away wet.”  I found this line unbelievably amusing, and unbelievably true.  Oy.

 

• Ok ok ok, so it’s true.  The hottest girl from high school is STILL, by far, the hottest girl in our class.  It isn’t even close.  I have great memories of her from 11th grade history class – mostly because whenever our class would “circle up” – she would invariably end up directly across the circle from me and I could always see her underwear.  Ahh, the good ole days of high school.  At the reunion she grabbed my ass and begged me to meet her in the bathroom in 5 minutes said hi to me.

 

• During conversation over dinner with a guy I hadn’t seen in at least 10 years, I might have accidentally spit some food onto him.  Possibly into his hair.  He possibly might not have noticed.  And I possibly might not have said anything.  I possibly might have also seen that same piece of food still sitting comfortably in his hair about 2 hours later.

 

• Who the hell plans dancing as a major part of a high school reunion?  Seriously.  Most people just spent the night avoiding the dance floor as much as they could.  In fact, at one point, I ran into an old friend while I was quickly walking over the dance floor to get back to my table.  He stopped me, and of course, immediately the dj put on a slow song.  In a very urgent, yet diplomatic way, I dragged him off the dance floor before anyone saw us.

 

• Speaking of slow songs, when the DJ starting blaring “Stairway to Heaven” ABFF and I decided it was time to leave. 

 

• On our way out the door, a girl chased after me “ToBlogOr, ToBlogOr, hold up!” She yelled.  ABFF and I stopped.  “Hey, thanks for holding up.  How are you?  I just heard you live down in DC – I’m there too!”  We then proceeded through a 10 minute conversation where we discussed our jobs, her divorce, her kids, etc etc etc as ABFF stood silently by.  We talked about hanging out sometime, and I recommended she look me up on Facebook.  Hugs hugs hugs and goodbyes were said, and ABFF and I headed out.  As we walked out the door, I looked at him and said, “Who the fuck was that?”

 

¹ Except if GF is reading this post.  I swear I do not have the hots for your sister.

Hair Hair Everywhere!

I wanted to call it the High School Hair Reunion.  This is saying a lot considering when I graduated. 

We have had different periods over the history of this planet that have been named. This is referred to as “Periodization,” which is defined as “the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on periods of time with relatively stable characteristics.”

Whoa.  That’s pretty deep stuff, eh?  Examples of Periodization include:

• The Stone Age (from about 2.6 million years ago until about 10,000 years ago)
• The Shang Dynasty (from 1800BC – 1200BC)
• The Dark Ages (4th century AD until about 900)
• The Renaissance (1400 – 1600)
• The Disgusting Hair Period (1981-1996)

I graduated from high school in the early 90’s, so when I say that my reunion was all about hair, you know it had to be special. 

I grew up in a rural blue collar part of the eastern US.  You definitely wouldn’t call my area “trendy” or “fashion forward,” unless you define that as “stuck in the 90’s.”  I’d say that 60% of the people who went to my school still live in the area, which meant that, while their style might have changed a little bit, I still saw my fair share of mullets on both men AND women. 

That’s not what I’m here to talk about though.  I’m here to talk about the other 40% of the people who left the area. 

Why?

Because I want to be serious for a moment, and discuss a startling discovery I’ve made.

Apparently if you move away from the area where I grew up, you become susceptible to a rare genetic disorder called “Rapid Follicular Disruption Syndrome” or RFDS. 

Because it isn’t well known, you probably haven’t heard about it.  RFDS causes abnormal hair growth/loss primarily in men over the age of 30.  It’s a tragic disease since most of the victims also take on symptoms of dementia, whereas their mental faculties have declined to such a point that they don’t recognize that there is any issue with their hair.

Where do I start?

I’ve known “Doctor Hair” since 9th grade or so.  I’m friends with him on Facebook, so I’ve seen that he’s been slowly losing his hair over the past couple of years.  What I didn’t realize though, is how rapidly the symptoms of RFDS had progressed. The following is my fairly accurate, and extremely artistic impression of my poor friend.

He sort of reminded me of a nerdy, pudgy, and bald version of V from “V is For Vendetta.”

While male pattern baldness caused the majority of his hair loss, it was the rapid onset of RFDS that caused the abnormal growth in his facial region.  The problem is, he’s a doctor, not a comic book store owner.  It’s not a look that I think instills confidence in medical knowledge/ability, I can tell you that much.

It’s a sad sad case, and unfortunately the dementia has taken such a toll on him, that he truly believes that his large hoop earring is both an attractive and professional look for a person of his stature.

Moving on.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I almost freaked out.  I thought I was being attacked.  With all the talk of superheroes, I figured a villain HAD to be around, and low and behold one had arrived. 

Wolfman.

 

I’ve known this guy since 1st grade, and I didn’t recognize him at all when he tapped me on the shoulder.  When you’ve known someone that long, you have to change a lot in order not to be recognized at all. 

Another unfortunate case of RFDS. 

Luckily his dementia has not fully set in.  Since he still had most of his faculties, he was aware that his appearance had changed significantly and knew that he would need to re-introduce himself to me.   Thankfully he did this, or I would have never known who he was.  Below is my depiction of my friend:

(Ok, maybe he looks like a combination of Wolfman and Jesus)  Fortunately, he is employed in some sort of crunchy tree-hugging type of job that involves smoking a lot of marijuana which, unlike my previous friend, will help him fit in to society a little bit more easily.

The last case I’m going to discuss today is probably the saddest.

I was standing around talking to ABFF, when we were interrupted by a strange looking fellow. 

“Hey guys!!”

I was completely horror struck aghast befuddled.  Luckily ABFF had enough cool to quickly analyze the situation and recognize the person and return the greeting appropriately.

Apparently the onset of RFDS was so devastating that it caused most of the hair on his head to fall out, yet caused massive growth in every other area.

Do you recall my post about face-boobs a while back?  This was exactly the same situation, except in relation to this poor fellow’s hands.

If you are squeamish or have children in the room, you may want to turn away now.  Below is my extremely accurate illustration of what was before me.

I’ll put it to you this way.  He had hair on his fingers that was longer than my chest hair. 

ABFF and I couldn’t take our eyes off his hands.  As he wildly gestured during our conversation, our eyes never left his hands.  I’m not sure how he was even able to wildly gesture, due to the extra weight and wind-resistance that the massive amounts of hair probably added.  It was also apparent that the dementia had set in long ago, as he seemed perfectly comfortable with us continually staring at his hands.

All of these are extremely sad cases, and have had a profound effect on me.

Unfortunately there are no tests currently available to determine if I have the genetic markers for RFDS.  Therefore, I’ve come up with my own plan of action in case something as heartrending as this happens to me.

I’ve re-written my living will to include RFDS dementia. 

It now has a “laser hair removal” clause.

Stop Hitting on Me Wouldja?

You’re embarrassing yourself.  Really.  Can’t we just have a normal conversation without you verbally caressing my nut-sack?  Don’t get me wrong, I love my nuts rubbed just as much as the next guy, but that job is already staffed, and I’m not looking to outsource.  Not to you, anyway.

Oh, excuse me.  Hello!  I didn’t see you all standing there.  Welcome back from Thanksgiving break my fellow blogosphere-weenies.  I hope you return well fed, I know I did.

I apologize that you had to be present for that conversation above, it’s really quite embarrassing.  Well, not for me.  I mean, luckily you only had to see my thoughts, you didn’t have to be exposed to the actual conversation(s).

The word that comes to mind when thinking about the conversation(s) is pedantic.  Why?  I dunno, it’s just the word that popped into my mind.  Other things that also popped into my mind during the conversation(s) were:

• Stop being so boring
• Why are you trying to show off?
• How did I get myself into this?
• Cash bars are the dumbest things ever.
• What time I should head home on Sunday, I heard the weather was going to be bad.
• Hmm I wonder if a new episode of Fringe on this week.
• I love that show, too bad it’s on at the same time as the Mentalist.
• I’m not gay, but even I think that Simon Baker is hot.
• Hmm the chick on that show is pretty hot too… in a mean cop kind of way.  I like that.
• Why does my ass itch so much?  I think it’s this new underwear.  Argh!

Oh, I’m sorry, what did you just say?  It’s uhhh so loud in here I had uhhh trouble hearing you…. yeah. That’s it.

I think I’m confusing you, maybe I should just start from the beginning.

So, you may or may not know this, but over the Thanksgiving holiday I attended my 15 year high school reunion.

It was scheduled for Friday evening at the local zoologically named conference center.  My date was my bff from junior high.  He prefers to remain anonymous, so let’s just refer to him as ABFF.

Anyway, we decided to show up about as early as we could, because as he said “the earlier we get there, the earlier we can leave.”  Why leave early?  Well, several reasons, but the most prominent being the reunion schedule – which was as follows:

6:30-7:30pm: Cocktail Hour

7:30-8:30pm: Dinner

8:30-11:30pm: Dancing

Since there was no way in hell that we were going to slow dance together, we decided it was in our best interest to get the hell out of Dodge when the dancing began.  We’ll touch more on this later.

We get there just a couple minutes late, and head up into the ballroom.  As we walk in, we realize that we don’t recognize a single person.  Hmmm, this could be interesting.

And then it started.

While standing in line at registration – the girl in front of us turns around.

“ToBlogOr! Hi! How are you?  Great to see you!  You look great!”  Hugs all around.

At registration:

“ToBlogOr! Wow, I can’t believe how GREAT you look!” Hug hug hug hug.

While walking around the ballroom:

“Oh my god.  ToBlogOr, is that you?  You look fantastic! You really filled out! Wow!” Hughughughughughughughughugassgrabhughughughug

And on and on and on.

Yes yes, thank you thank you.  Yes we’ve all grown up a bit since high school, haven’t we?  Nice to see you too.  So what are you doing with yourself?  Oh you still live around here?  That’s great.  Divorced? I’m sorry to hear that.  Oh yes, I work out.  Thank you.  No, I live down in DC.  Yep, I’m here until Sunday.  Oh, sorry I already have plans for the rest of the holiday.  Maybe next time.

Multiply that conversation by about 20.  In high school I was never this popular.  Of course, in high school I made Erkel look like he was on steroids.

 

The thing is, I didn’t come to the reunion to get a date.  I was there to find out how people were doing, and to get plenty of blog material.  Instead, I had to keep forcibly removing fellow high school classmates lips from my boys. 

I’m not telling you this story to gloat.  No, if I wanted to gloat I would be telling you about the results of the reproductive organ dimension competition.

No, I’m telling you this because I’m sad.  Sad that people haven’t moved on.  Sad that so many of my former classmates are stuck in the same little crappy small town where they grew up.  Sad that they haven’t branched out and explored the world.  Sad that their dating pool is still our high school class.

I was only briefly sad though. 

At least my balls were well buffed.

—————————————————-

Coming tomorrow: “Hair, Hair Everywhere!”

on our continuing saga:

Bowling for Baldness:

The ToBlogOr Reunion Story

High School Reunion Reviewed

Going to a high school reunion is kind of like going to an ex-girlfriend’s wedding.  Since you’ve already slept with the bride, it can’t be anything but a little bit awkward.

My reunion was no different.

It was fun, it was exciting, it was so much more than a little bit awkward. 

I will definitely say this though, you can not underestimate the importance of the word “girth” when describing a 15 year high school reunion.

The drawing above is a good descriptor for how to measure girth, but isn’t really representative of what I experienced.  I think this picture might give you a better idea:

 

Of course, that picture brings up another point that “Male Pattern Baldness” would be an appropriate descriptor to use as well:

Baldness Patterns Observed (circled)

Though really, this picture would be more accurate:

If this is all I had to say about my reunion, I would be fairly happy that I portrayed it in an accurate manner.

But I wouldn’t do that to you.  I know you want more.  I know you want the fun stories.  I know you want to hear who was embarrassed.  I know that you want to hear what happened when the hottest chick in the entire high school walked up to me to say hello.  I know you want to hear who I accidentally spit food on.

And you’ll get it, starting tomorrow.  In a series I’ve entitled:

Bowling for Baldness, the ToBlogOr Reunion Story.

A Return to Wedgieville

My 15 year high school reunion is this coming weekend.

FUCK.  When did I suddenly get old?

I swear it was just yesterday when I was going to college and getting bombed any night of the week was ok because I didn’t wake up the next morning with a huge hangover and have to write a blog tribute to my toilet.  How did 15 years go by so fast?

Ahhh high school.  The time of my life where I was so awkward, that the word awkward even picked on me.

I used to be short and scrawny.  Quiet.  Bookish.  I was a pretty good musician so everyone knew who I was, but no one really knew me.  I was an unknown.  Nerdy and badly dressed with huge ass shiny gold rimmed glasses.  The technical term that defined me was “bully bait.”

My senior year of high school, I was about 3 votes short of winning the award for “Most Unique.”   Yeah, you know that award.  “Most Unique” really stands for “Most-Likely-to-Get-Beaten-Up-By-a-Woman-in-a-Bar-Fight” (oh, wait, I won that one in college…) 

Fortunately there was this guy named Dennis Moon who ended up edging me out, and hence is forever remembered as the weird guy in our yearbook.  My singular remembrance of him is playing together on a soccer team and he wore a lavender sweat suit and a helmet. 

I’ve grown up a bit since then. 

I’ve filled out.  I learned how to dress myself.  I gained social skills and confidence.  I’m in shape, have all of my hair, and have a really good job.  My girlfriend is both smart AND hot.  I’m also a blogger, and we all know that bloggers are the coolest people ever.

So you know what?  I am going to own this reunion.

Why?

Because time has a way of evening up the playing field. 

Those so-called popular kids are now balding and overweight.  They still look back on their high school years as the best years of their life.

Think:

or

or

Painful, isn’t it? 

When it comes right down to it, those old popular kids are no match for me now, just as back-in-the-day I was no match for them.

I’ve entertained thoughts of verbally gouging a whole long list of people who had wronged me in one way or another.  It would be like fishing in a barrel.  I could go back and make the whole school look like the idiots they are, and I would have fun doing it. 

And then I had a realization. 

If I go back to my reunion all bitter and angry with the purpose of showing people up…. I’d be no better than them, though I have a couple of pairs of vengeful underwear that would disagree.

The thing is, I don’t need to laugh at their crappyness to validate what I’ve done with my life.  I’ve grown up and become successful on my own.  I don’t need to shove their heads in a toilet and flush insult them to make myself look good. 

Just showing up is going to be victory enough.

The GPS set, the course is plotted.  Look out kids, I’ll be taking the high road in my return to Wedgieville.