Class of 2000 - The 10 Year Reunion

Two summers ago all the teen movies I enjoyed in the 90s collided with all the returning-to-your-hometown-to-find-nothing's-changed movies I've enjoyed as an adult -- into one tragically entertaining though slightly unbelievable event:

 my Ten Year High School Reunion.

     

It all started the year before the reunion would take place. One of my best friends, Lauren, was our senior class president back in 2000, and she had come to the realization that SHE was supposed to be in charge of coordinating this bittersweet event (bitter because WTH, we'd already been out of high school for ten freaking years? and sweet because we couldn't wait to see everyone we'd graduated with so we could ridicule them). She asked if I'd be willing to help out when the time came.

Lauren wasn't enthralled with the idea of planning this once-in-a-lifetime event, having a toddler at home and being due to give birth to her second son a mere months before the party. I agreed, despite my lack of party planning skills, simply because I wanted to help my friend, and because I did want there to be a reunion (no party = no classmate ridiculing).

The start of 2010 rolled around and the passing decade must have flipped a switch in some of the 2000 grads, because I ended up getting Facebook messages from not one, but two, of the girls I graduated with. Let's call them Humpty and Dumpty. Both of them knew Lauren was the officiant, but Lauren, genius that she is, does not have a Facebook account. These girls began assaulting Lauren through me. Both of them requested Lauren's email address (which I only gave them once I'd asked Lauren's permission) and proceeded to tell me that if there was anything we needed while planning this no doubt amazing party, to PLEASE let them know.

What happened over the next couple months went like this:

1. Humpty and Dumpty, along with a handful of their Class of 2000 friends, completely took over the reunion planning. Just ripped it right out from Lauren's and my grasp. (Ok... we weren't holding on very tightly.)
2. Via Facebook (of course) I was bombarded, as was the rest of our class, with messages, posts, and embarrassing pictures from senior year, as the morbid countdown began. 
3. We were charged a ludicrous amount of money to attend our small town high school reunion.

I'll pick up a couple weeks before the event:

Lauren, Jasmine, Erin, and I had decided that we simply had to attend this party celebrating our aging process in a group. It was the only way we'd all survive. Every time we saw each other during this pivotal countdown stage, we'd make comments of disdain toward the event itself, as well as the self-inflicted "party planners". (I know, we were jerks... we didn't want the responsibility or to put in the work, but made fun of the people who did... it was fun.)

There's a piece of information I should include here. Humpty and Dumpty were part of the Class of 2000 "cool crowd". Meaning they were the "popular" girls who'd always thought they were better than everyone else despite all other categories of students staunchly disagreeing. The irony lies in the fact that Humpty didn't join our class until middle school (being a fresh-faced new 6th grade girl, she obtained an 8th grade boyfriend almost immediately and could be observed making out with him any given break); Dumpty came along in high school and finagled her way into the cool crowd much to most of our amazement (some people have a gift for convincing the Mean Girls that they're cool enough hang... either that or said Mean Girls must always have dorkier girls flitting around in order to make themselves look better... hence the permission to join). There were 73 other girls who actually attended Templeton Schools from kindergarten or first grade on (including myself and my entire group of friends). But that's cool... let the newbies plan our reunion. (No really, let them... remember, we didn't want to.)

Within a week before the main event, our class received a mass email informing us that when we showed up at the site, we would be required to pay an extra ten dollars per couple because the party planning geniuses had not brought in enough money for their legendary party. Real classy. Jon was beyond annoyed because he already thought the admission price was ludicrous for a party he'd rather be strung up by his toenails and tickled with razorblades than attend. But we got to pay ten MORE dollars!

Let the fun begin!

2010 Re-creation of a truly amazing Freshman Homecoming photo from 1996

The day of the reunion finally arrived, and our group had made plans to meet at Jasmine's house for a cocktail party before zero hour. I showed up even earlier to get ready. You know, like Prom? Our entourage of eight caravanned to River Oaks Hot Springs Spa in Paso Robles. This place has several buildings, and is actually quite a beautiful place to hold a wedding or other important lifetime event... like a class reunion. The problem was, the Party Planning Committee had booked the building that has no walls. It's a shelter. It has a bar. But it has no walls. It's on a hill. In Paso Robles. In August. At 7:00 pm, it was freezing. All the girls had done what all 28-year-old women do when they want to impress their former classmates -- worn sassy dresses and heels without sweaters.

We irritably handed our extra money over to Humpty and Dumpty at the entrance as we took in the scene. A cluster of tables, a buffet style food area cutting the room in half, and another cluster of tables. The wind blew through this place like a hurricane was coming as we hastily sat down at a table together. Jasmine, Kim, Erin, Steve, Lauren, Nick, Jon, and I stuck together, not too interested in mingling with the other 2000ers. We were having so much fun already, why would we break up our party to join the real party thrown by the Mean Girls? Besides, we were shivering too much to move. Except to retrieve some wine from the bar, of course. (Which was, by the way, being served by individuals -- younger siblings or underclassmen with residual fear of the Mean Girls, perhaps? -- who either had no practical experience pouring wine, or knew how badly we'd need it permeating our bloodstreams in order to endure the night... when Jasmine and Kim returned with their first round, their glasses were benevolently filled to the rims. No complaints.)

From this point on, it seemed as though no one was in charge. Eventually people awkwardly started to filter through the food line. Chicken, vegetables, bread. Nothing offered was gag-inducing, but it certainly felt like we were pilfering through boring wedding reception food... that we'd paid $65 for. After the meal we decided to get up and mingle. We had seen people we legitimately wanted to talk to, and figured we could do some laps around the room, maybe even some jumping jacks, in order to increase our body temps.

I was able to catch up with at least three (I know, SCORE!) people I'd graduated with that I truly hadn't seen, talked to, or stalked on Facebook since 2000. Pleasant conversation was had. I just made sure to stay away from the other side of the room, in which Humpty, Dumpty, Shauna (yes, that Shauna), and other assorted Mean Girls meandered about together. I glanced around the room and noticed that, not only were there hardly any people there, but most of the attendees were grouped in the same exact circles one would have found them ten years ago in the upperclass quad. No encouragement to mix these circles together and get people talking... the Mean Girls were too busy talking to each other, as usual.

At some point a Mean Girl, who interestingly enough helped Humpty and Dumpty plan the reunion, and is an actual party planner (like, that's her CAREER), yelled at everyone to make their way over to a sketchily-rigged up screen that kept blowing over in the wind. It was time to watch the slideshow! Months back, one of Dumpty's thousands of e-mails had requested we send her pictures from high school, or current pictures of us with fellow grads we still spent time with. I'd sent her six pictures, including one of Lauren, Jasmine, and me in fourth grade. I had tried to choose pictures I had with different people, knowing Dumpty couldn't include ALL the pictures people would send and it'd be good to have as many grads represented as possible.

Cue the music from She's All That, because now it becomes a real life nineties movie.

The slideshow began. Humpty with her friends; Dumpty with her friends; Mean Girls; Dumpty; group of dorks; Dumpty; Mean Girls; Mean Girls; one of my pictures; Humpty and Dumpty together... on the pattern went until the 15 people left at the party started to look around at each other, flabbergasted. Are they serious? we all inquired of each other silently. The slideshow ended and a few of us in the back just started busting up. This was the lamest and coldest party we'd ever been to, and we'd just been shown a personal history, in photos, of the party planners.

There was a total of 35 people at this party (I believe we had about 150 people in our graduating class), which obviously included people's DATES, such as my own husband, who did not attend THS. It felt like it was about time to go, when one of us checked the time. "It's only 8:30!!" This epic party, taken over by Humpty, Dumpty, and a legitimate party planner, had been morbidly attended, and was only going to last an hour and a half!

Our group made the decision to continue our party at the Crooked Kilt in downtown Paso, because we were all dressed up with nothing to do. Turns out everyone else from the reunion had the same idea. Almost every single person we'd seen at the party showed up at the Kilt... except the Mean Girls. Conversation commenced, drinks were poured, dancing ensued. I like to call it the Actual Class of 2000 Ten Year Reunion. It lasted until 2:00 am.

In 2020, I think we should just tell everyone to meet at a bar.

These poor girls don't know what awaits them in 14 years...

Truly amazing Freshman Homecoming photo from 1996