My hair was a mess. It really need a good dye job. My gray roots were showing. “I look old,” I told Adam.
“No, you don’t,” he assured me, because he had to assure me because it was my birthday, I had agreed to go to his 20th high school reunion, and there was no cake. What was he going to say? “Besides, everyone at the reunion is going to look old. I saw some of their pictures on Facebook. Old!”
Guess what? No one looked old. Well, except for me and Adam.
Adam has one high school friend I really like. Correction: Adam’s high school friend is okay and all. Adam has one high school friend whose wife I really like (if you read this, high school friend, nothing personal). I asked Adam what to wear. I confused and flustered him with my question. He said he was wearing a blazer. So the wife (and I’m going to go ahead and call her by her real name, as she’s a blogger who writes somewhat sarcastic things about her kids and is therefore fair game. She’s Jen! Do you hear me? Jen!) and I conferred on what to wear, and I settled on jeans with no holes and a nice shirt. Ugh. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was completely overdressed. Borrowing Doodles’s Bruins jersey would have been the way to go.
The evening started off oddly when we walked in and I went to fill out a name tag. “Guests don’t wear name tags,” I was told. Welcome to you, too! I then had a moment of panic when I looked at my phone… no service. “Do you have AT&T?” Jen asked me. “Yes,” I said. She laughed at me. “Welcome to New Hampshire!”
My birthday. No cake. And no tweets? This was going to be a horrific night… but I was saved by wifi. Thank God for sports bars with wifi.
We had two drink choices: beer and a funky cold medina. (Which proves that math is not the school’s forte; “Funky Cold Medina” is from 1989. This was a class reunion from 1991. Yes, Adam is young. Yes, I robbed the cradle. Shut up already!) I chose beer. Jen chose the funky cold medina. One was wiser than the other (name the poem that line comes from and I’ll… um, I’ll be impressed). I’m pretty sure her drink was simply grape juice and vodka. My beer, happily enough, was all beer.
The best part of the night was watching Adam struggle. All of the name tags had folks’ high school pictures on them (note to self: educate Doodles on “unibrow” and “waxing” well before his senior year of high school). The minute we walked in, some guy covered his name. “Hey, Adam!” he said. “Guess who I am?”
Hey, guy! Guess who has no idea!
Adam couldn’t get it. He looked at the high school picture. Still couldn’t get it. The guy uncovered his name. Adam still had no idea who he was.
For fun I started a drinking game. I took one swing every time Adam was completely unsubtle in saying, “Hi”—eyes drift to name tag, he squints at name—“so and so!” I drank two swallows for every time Adam said, “Long time!” I got very drunk, very quickly.
I finally got to meet a high school friend of Adam’s whom I’ve heard a lot about. She sends a lovely newsy Christmas card every year. She gave me a big hug, chatted with Adam, and in 3 minutes 23 seconds gave us the lamest excuse to not talk to us anymore. Something along the lines of “Oh, you know what? I think I left my hat in my car! I better go check.”
The music was fun. The tweeting was good. And all of an hour and 12 minutes into the event, Adam said, “Okay, I’ve had enough. Let’s go.”
“I’m doing fine!” I assured him. Despite not being done with the beer I had, Jen shoved another beer in my hand so I was literally doublefisting. It was just like 1991!
“Yeah, but I’m done. I’ve talked to everyone I wanted to talk to. Let’s go.”
We walk out of the bar. Outside, a guy walks up to me, puts an arm around my shoulders. “Adam married you?” he said. “Wow. Who would have thought he could get a woman like you!” I’m liking this guy already! “Let me tell you,” he said, “your husband and I have known each other since kindergarten. We went to school together since kindergarten all the way through high school.”
“Hey,” Adam said. “Long time.”
We get to the car. “That was cool running into him,” I said.
“I have no idea who he is,” Adam told me.*
For that I didn’t get cake?
*Thirteen hours later, sitting at breakfast at The Friendly Toast, appropos of nothing, Adam shouted out, “I know who he is! We did go to school together starting in kindergarten!”
