$25

Kids, I'm in a pickle. Basically, the crux of this pickle is as follows: it's been ten years since I graduated high school, so some enterprising people have decided we need to have a reunion of some kind, presumably so we can all remember why exactly we didn't like each other in high school- only this time with healthy amounts of booze to help us deal with that.

I had a mild, morbid curiosity about the effects of the passage of time upon my fellow Class of '01ers, so when it was proposed, I was open to the idea. I put my two cents into the handy-dandy discussion wall on Facebook and promptly forgot all about it, figuring I would be informed when the time was right.

Well, that time was yesterday. It's November. At the high falutin' happenin' 1st Avenue Club in good old Iowa City. (Oh, you noticed the mild sarcasm? Good!) And the price of admission... $25 per person.

Hmmm... well now this was a conundrum. I consulted with the Missus who informed me that her classmates, being the enthusiastic lovers of casserole and hot dish that they are (she graduated in the Medium White North, after all) had decided to have a potluck, so her class reunion was free. But she hastened to assure me that her Mom (Best Mother In Law Ever Because She Throws Me Bottles of Templeton Rye Whenever She Finds Them or... BMILEBSTMBOTRWSFT as she'll be known hereafter) had to pay a similar amount for her recent reunion. Anything left over, she said, they put towards the next big one.

I examined the Facebook event with some care. Apparently there would be free beer and wine, but a cash bar for liquor drinks? Come on, now! And the place is conviniently located remarkably close to my house. It's entirely possible that with the right weather gear the Missus and I could get blind stinking drunk and stagger home without having to worry about the bother of driving.

But $25? I enjoyed high school. Once I escaped from the Catholic School That Shall Not Be Named (The Quiet Man and I both pissed on the side of their building some years later. Probably in high school. Eff that place.) City High was like a breath of fresh air. The lack of snotty rich people was wonderful. The fact that if there were assholes you didn't like, you could go whole days without laying eyes on them in that wonderfully, large school was also a plus. I found a corner where I (somewhat) fit in and have a load of good memories as a result.

However, I wouldn't say high school defined me all that much. I didn't live the dream in high school, looking back on it. I didn't have a girlfriend, I didn't drown in pussy, I wasn't all that popular and I didn't play any sports. I was as far away from the All-American high school cliche as you can get and I'm fine with that- because I've got good memories. Just not life defining ones.

Take The Pale One, for instance. When he, The Libertine and the S.I.L get together, it's like a circular firing squad of nostalgia- though The Libertine is better than the other two about it. How awesome high school was. How amazing and wonderful it was. Oh and do you remember so and so, she got pregnant and then... it's the same catalogue of stories over and over again, ad naseum. And while I can't deny them their trips down memory lane (whatever makes you happy, after all, kiddos) I think I'm comfortable saying that there's more to my existance than high school.

All of which begs the question: if there aren't some seriously cool people going to this thing, do I really want to pay $25 to go?

There are people I wouldn't mind catching up with... but then again there are people I'd be perfectly happy never seeing again. I think, kiddos, I'll have to watch the Facebook event wall and keep track of who's coming for a bit and weigh my options from there. But, I think, at the end of the day, the lure of free beer might be too much to pass up.