High School Reunion: An evening of awkward conversation and crap-tastic food

The title pretty much sums it up folks. I attended my 5 year high school reunion recently with my friend Pete, and decided to review it in this blog entry. The registration fee was 50 dollars.  We were promised a lovely evening of food and drink. From what I've heard, high school reunions are usually held at nice catering halls and such. Our high school hosted it in two of the gyms at the school.

We arrived by car only to find that the parking lot was full, and the valet told us to circle a few times for a spot to open up. After about 20 minutes of circling we found a spot about 5 blocks away from the school. A short walk on a crisp fall evening seemed allright, only to be ruined by my extremely uncomfortable dress shoes. I haven't worn them much, so they weren't broken in just yet. The stiff edges of the shoes kept digging into my ankles for the rest of the evening. I couldn't wait to take them off.

We entered our old high school, which hasn't changed all that much.   We were presented with name tags denoting our year of graduation.  There were several other classes in attendance (1960's to the 1980's) in addition to our class, 2005. The cocktail reception was held in the "new gym" which was fairly new when we were still in high school. Several hundred alumni, faculty, and staff were mingling with one another over drinks and finger foods. We scoped out the joint for a few minutes and decided to make a dash for the bar.

For 50 bucks, we wanted to make sure we got our fill of alcohol and food.

(Side note: When we were registering for the reunion on the school's website, there was a field for "RSVP comments." I decided to be a smart ass and write something funny. I asked if they could please stock Rolling Rock, our "group" beer of choice. Much to my surprise, everyone was drinking Rolling Rock!  For the rest of the evening people were making comments about my "beer suggestion". "Hey LoVerde, you got your wish huh?!" It kind of got old as the night went on though...)

The Old Latrobe

I didn't really indulge in the cocktail reception's food all that much. I tried a rather bland and dry chicken cordon bleu bite, and a panko encrusted shrimp tempura. Pete and I began to mingle with people we knew in high school. For the rest of the evening conversations primarily consisted of the following topics:

1) How have you been!?
2) Have you finished school?

3) Are you working? Where?

Needless to say, no one really gave a shit about any of this information but were just trying to be nice to one another. People still seemed to be very "clique-y" and were all hanging out in the same groups from back in the day. I didn't want anything to do with them back then, and I don't want anything to do with them today.

After about an hour, everyone was called into the other gym for dinner. The gym was set up with many different tables, and there were designated areas for each graduating class. For the rest of dinner, each class was called up to take a photo. Our class was the biggest in attendance, with about 70-80 people who showed up. Before dinner was served, we were all quieted down for a prayer. Not to get into religion and spirituality, but I am not a practicing Catholic anymore. It seemed like a lot of people were not either, as it was hard to keep a straight face during prayer. I tried so hard not to laugh, sorry God...

Dinner was served buffet style in the cafeteria next to the gym. The buffet consisted of the following: A Caesar salad, several different types of dinner rolls, a type of stuffed chicken, prime rib, rice, and vegetable medley. I made a plate of chicken, prime rib, rice, and vegetables. Honestly, the food flat-out sucked dick. The chicken was probably the highlight of my evening, and that's not saying much. It was stuffed with spinach and some sort of cheese. The rice had some sort of citrus hints to it, which 99% of the people I talked to complained about. I had no idea there was gravy for the prime rib, so I ate it plain. It was overcooked and flavorless.

Mehhhhhh

Stuffed chicken a la shit

After dinner we decided to drink some more and socialize. At one point Pete asked the bartender for a gin and tonic. I replied with, "Can I get one of those too?". I took a sip of my drink and almost spit it out. I asked the guy what it was and he said: "Whiskey and tonic, that's what you said you wanted right?" I gave him a weird look and walked away, quickly abandoning my drink on a random table. The strangest part of the evening had to be our drunken walk through of the school's hallways. We attempted to find our old lockers and ended up in a counselor's office, drunkenly giving a group of high school seniors advice about college.

There was talk of an "after party" somewhere on Bell Boulevard, but I was driving so I couldn't get all that fucked up. Besides, why would I want to go to Bell Blvd. with a bunch of people I have no interest in speaking to ever again? We walked back to my car and drove home with mixed feelings.

THE LOVERDICT:

I will not be attending the 10 year reunion.