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It’s been 10 years since I last trod the hallowed halls of my high
school. A decade has passed since I last
rocked a blazer that featured a visible list of my sporting achievements, attended
chapel twice a week and viewed boarding school dinners as a speed-eating exercise. In 2002 I was living in a glorified, highly
supervised version of a share house (replete with a swimming pool turned
stagnant pond), being reprimanded for wearing sport socks with the summer
uniform or a black ribbon that was too short, and passing my spare hours by
swapping VHS tapes of the latest episode of Alias and Dawson’s Creek with the
neighbouring boarders.
And so, with 10 years worth of water under the bridge, tradition,
nostalgia and Facebook declared it was time for us to get the 150 girl band
back together (like the Spice Girls if they stayed together longer, but had
less cultural impact). Twas reunion
time, bitches.
Due to some belated international backpacking (which, bizarrely,
coincided with the false accusation
that I tried to shoot a man… true story for another time) I had missed the 5
Year Reunion. As a result I was rather
enthused for the gathering, but making Fi and Livinia join me was akin to
pulling teeth (but less financially rewarding – unlike the orthodontist who gave
me straight teeth, and the Parentals Painefull empty wallets during my high
school career). By bizarre contrast, in
the lead up to the event Jim was persistently asking me if there was any way he
could come along. After living with me
for 3 years, tales of my high school had somehow developed a mythological
status that made him eager to get a first hand glimpse of the natives I had
described. He wanted to play Painefull
High School Bingo. Given that it was an
all girl school, slipping someone called Jim into the mix was going to prove a
little tricky.
The solution to all this?
The 10 Year Reunion Side Party.
What is a 10YRSP you may be asking?
I’ll tell you what it is mum.
It’s the small gathering of non school friends you coordinate to stage a
drinking session at a nearby watering hole, thus offering an escape route for
the less than willing reunion attenders, and an improvised entry point for the
vaguely curious.
Side Party of Randoms: Acquired
So how do you kick things off when you have a 10 Year Reunion and a 10YRSP? Well clearly that requires some sort of
pre-party gathering. Because when you
start with one party, why not make it three?
Third Gathering: Acquired
And what’s three parties without at least one party game? So, in a stroke of what I assumed was genius,
I came up with a contest (largely inspired by the legendary Romy & Michele’s
High School Reunion). The challenge was
this:
Each
contestant must come up with a lie that’s believable to someone you haven’t
seen in 10 years, but utterly ridiculous to those that know you. A point is scored every time that lie is fact
checked with another contestant in the game.
Challenge: … accepted*
Naturally I instantly declared that my lie was that I had a two
year old child, called Tomas, whose father is German. It pretty much sells itself. But in case it didn’t sell itself, when I
told my current crop of classmates the plan, they suggested I would need some
form of photographic evidence.
Thankfully one of those classmates happened to have his own child,
relatively fresh out of the box, with him.
Photographic Evidence: Acquired
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| My baby is on order, he's arriving fully trained with dish washing capabilities |
Amongst the other back story lies, we had one girl who was going
to reveal she was recently released on parole, an ASIO officer, and a pair with
suitable hair colouring that had formed their own ABBA tribute band called
ABBA-Salute.
Of course, when it came to the eve of the reunion itself, not
everything went precisely to plan.
The 10YRSP venue turned out to be closed. Jim was granted his wish when, for lack
of a decent Plan B, that gathering of
randoms who never went to our high school was forced to station themselves
within the reunion venue. When
confronted on the rather obvious fact he never went to our all girl school, his
absurd knowledge of my year finally paid off when he claimed to be the post-op
version of a girl who wasn’t in attendance.
And when I finally built up the courage (and remembered) to try
out my lie… I happened to test it on the girl universally acknowledged as the
nicest, kindest, loveliest person in the year.
What with her being so very nice, kind and lovely, she didn’t try to
debate my tale, or query the photo I showed.
All this, plus alcohol, sent me so rapidly into a spiral of guilt that I
was forced to admit the deception 20 minutes later. And as I swayed drunkenly, while she looked
at me with earnest, confused, widened eyes and asked:
“Why
on earth would you lie about something like that?”
Forcing me to admit that it seemed like a funny idea about a week
earlier… I knew then that 10 years had evolved me into an even stranger person
than I had been at high school. If
that’s possible.
After that it was just a hop, skip and a jump into belligerent,
retrospectively embarrassing sweary-ness (the type that often sees me coining
phrases like ‘I prefer to bump’). And
tap dancing. It’s remarkable that the
most common thing said to me by various people the next day was:
“You
really did a lot of tap dancing.”
Well not that remarkable.
What was remarkable was that I didn’t find my way into a top hat in the
process.
And
so, that cultural tradition (tap dancing at one’s 10 year reunion after lying
about one’s life achievements) and excuse for a
trip down memory lane has passed. It was
technically uneventful considering the Facebook Event Page that organized it
devolved into a war of words over the venue that would make the Jets and the
Sharks complain that things were getting a little too camp. What it was, was incredibly eerie to step
into a room where you recognized every face from some distant, long ago time.
It’s also been an eerie experience for Mother Painefull. Her claim to everlasting youth – a final,
last-though child that went to school a decade after the rest of her children –
has taken a serious hit with the revelation that I am no longer that youthful myself.
Painefull Out
P.S. The final scene from my
evening involved housemate Layla (a participant in the 10YRSP) and I demolishing
a
plate of dips and cheese in a heady, primal swoop, seated in the darkness of
the lounge room, not making eye contact, aware even in this most primal state
that what we were doing wasn’t a notable high point for either of us.
Then
I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
That’s right Tomas – mama parties hard.
