Oddly, GPB came out in 97, which was when I graduated. And really, everything was exactly like the movie, but with only slightly less contract killing. And no Dan Aykroyd. At least not that I'm aware of.
Anyway, took off at noon on Friday to roll up to P-town so we'd actually have time to visit with the family unit. Hung out for a while, ate Monicals, hung out some more, my great-grandma threatened to steal my Mustang while we were walking back over to Mom's house, which ended with a bout of hilarity and shitty cell phone pics:
You should be able to make out the top of my 90-year-old great-grandmother's head in that picture. This was where she made her way into the car, but was unable to figure out how to open the door to get out. Funny. After that debacle, we made our way up to Liz's parents house at Lake Iroquis for "beer and yard games", which ended with mostly beer, and being mildly electrocuted by Basler's new fitness toy.
Saturday: Woke up kinda late, got dressed, hung out with mom/grandma again, waited in line a freaking half hour for Just Hamburgers, which was completely worth it. Ate, headed across town to hang out with Grandma Jackie for a bit. Went back home, got dressed and met up with our carpool at Chris's house at 4, with Nate/Pam, Liz/John, Chris/Cari. Shoehorned everyone into the Pilot (note: the 3rd row seat of a Honda Pilot is not fit for 6' tall, 200lb+ dudes.)
Got to Gibson, and after a slight DJ scare (he didn't show until close to 5:45), it was go time. With the help of cheap and plentiful liquid courage (I was on my 4th drink by 6), the whole reunion thing wasn't as god-awful as I had built it up to likely end up in my head. Everyone's basically the same, except they have jobs and shit now. And we can legally drink. And that's basically what it wound up being, a bunch of people standing around, drinking/smoking/talking. It was a bar scene where people kinda knew each other. There was the standard bunching-off of people, just like in school, and just like in school, I was hopping around between groups. Just drunk this time.
The party wrapped up at midnight, and after paying our ($40!!!!) bar tab, we headed back east to P-town via Loda. Let me just point out that bar tab amount and remark on it's remarkable-ness. Ellen and I started drinking at 4pm. We left at 12am. Ellen drank primarily Tangeray and Tonic, I drank mainly Crown & Coke (with a lime, dammit), and had a few 312s. $40. I paid out cash for a few rounds where I was buying shit for other people, but I only spent about $30 in that manner. So that was awesome. I also smoked pretty much a full pack in that timespan, again just due to mild stress and not knowing what else to do. So there's that. Oh, Chris also applauded after grace before supper, which was hilarious.
Anyway, for some idiotic reason, we decided we needed to drink more, so Ellen & I headed over to Nate's parent's house for more beers, and me getting gnawed on by his massive, old dog. Left there around 2a or so.
Sunday: Woke up amazingly not-as-hungover-as-i-shoulda-been, got on the road by 11, made it from P-town to Collinsville in 2 hours, 35 minutes, which is great. I love the barren wasteland/autobahn that is I72. Glad I started taking that route. Got home, watched TV, at BW3, napped, and passed out at 10.
Really, the reunion wasn't as bad as I'd built it up to be in my head. I'm not sure why I was stressing it so much. I generally hate crap where I'm forced to socialize with people I normally wouldn't, which is basically all a reunion is. So, there's that. It was interesting to see what happened to everyone, but I didn't have any breakthroughs with anyone or forge any new friendships. Just general bullshit chit-chat, and lots of booze. I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with not doing that again for another 10 years or so.
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