sanity and reunions, part one

I have most likely decided to go to my high school reunion. This is unexpected for me...I hated high school, hated the person I was at the time, had no good relationships, and generally could not wait to leave. On top of that, I have seen remarkably few people from high school since leaving.

It's not that I hated everyone with whom I went to school. Far from it, but out of the 5-10 people I really would like to see, the majority of them still live in our hometown, and I've run into most of them during my brief stays. While it would be great to see them all at once, the thought of "enforced nostalgia" which will inevitably accompany the formal reunion makes me itch, frankly. And if I wanted to see all my old friends, I'd rather just plan an extended trip back down there and make some phone calls.

However, a friend of mine who moved to California (and developed a rather nasty habit of saying the word "dude" repeatedly) is coming, and since I have very little chance of making it out to the left coast anytime soon, I have agreed to go to this nightmarish reunion. In order to make the whole shindig more notable, I have suggested a number of tasks to occupy our time at the ceremony. Round one involves coming up with and then betting on over/unders for the:

• number of people who scare us
  
• number of people who show us photos of their kids
  
• number of people astounded we don't have kids
  
• number of people who tell us children are the greatest blessing in life
  
• number of people who will talk to us now but wouldn't in HS
  
• number of people we really don't want to see
  
• number of people who look disappointed when they find out I'm a leftist
  
• number of people who don't understand why I would want to be a teacher (and, as a result, I'm thinking of just introducing myself as a media scholar)
  
• incidents of homophobic rants
  
• amount of times we hear Bon Jovi, hair metal, or Prince
  
• amount of subsequent dancing to said crap music
  
• robots
  
• automatons
  
• number of people who have aged 20 years more than expected
  
• general level of smugness
  
• number of people who've never actually left our hometown
  
• amount of times we resist the urge to punch someone
  
• number of minutes until we are overcome with the urge to blow the joint and just hit a dark dive bar
  

Anyone have any further suggestions? I feel I'll need all the distractions I can get.