Don't Call Me Marge: My College Reunion Was Better Than Yours

Some of you will remember that, the last time I blogged, all the way back in the mists of ancient history (April, was it?) I blogged about how much I was looking forward to my 10^th college reunion. Some of you totally agreed with me that reunions are an awful idea and college sucked and so the people you went to college with also sucked and your real grown-up friends are heaps cooler anyway. Some of you really need to work on your reading comprehension.

I have now been and gone from that reunion (like, TWO WEEKS AGO, geez) and I’m back to give you an update. I bet you thought I was never coming back. Ha ha ha, I’m totes like that ex of yours who dumped you for somebody else (regular exercise and a sleep schedule) only turn up like 10 years later when his life didn’t work out as well as he planned. Please take me back. I miss your laugh.

ANYHOO, if you’re still with us, my college reunion ROCKED SO HARD THAT I MIGHT HAVE TO WRITE THE REST OF THIS POST IN CAPSLOCK. Kidding, that would suck. But just know that it rocked super hard. Here are some highlights:

I arrived late on the first day, because of course I did, and missed lunch, and I kept meaning to go and get something to eat in the afternoon but that never happened because somebody handed me a drink and I just decided to go with that, because of course I did. One of the great things about Hollins University’s reunions is that they like to keep us pretty liquored up, so we’ll donate more to alumnae fund. So I had beer for lunch, wine for dessert, and of course there was an open bar at dinner. Don’t worry, I ate dinner – it will reappear later in the story.

There was a class party after dinner and of course, I had to drink some more. My class’s reunion co-chair bought us enough booze to kill an elephant. Not even a small elephant – a full-sized elephant. I had planned to sleep on campus, and I was supposed to join my class for the parade of classes on the front quad right outside my dorm room the next morning.

This area right here.

I overslept. I woke up, heard the parade going on, threw on clothes, and raced outside, where I barely managed to meet up with my class at the actual end of the fucking parade. I was standing there talking to my friend, Page, who lived across the hall from me when we were young and dinosaurs walked the Earth, and she said to me, “Dare I ask what’s on your name tag?”

And that’s when I looked down, and saw for the first time that my reunion badge was drenched in vomit.

I was able to clean the ribbon. The tag itself didn't fare so well.

So this conversation happened repeatedly throughout the rest of the day:

“What happened to your nametag?”

“I vomited on it.”

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

This conversation also happened:

“At least you didn’t get any on your meal ticket, right?”

“Um…” *looks at meal ticket* “A little bit.”

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

“HEY PAGE, I GOT SOME OF FRIDAY NIGHT’S DINNER ON MY MEAL TICKET!”

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

My former professor, Richard Dillard, didn’t even have to ask. He just looked at my nametag and cracked up. “You had a wild night last night, didn’t you?”

Yes, Richard, I did. For the record – and this will probably cost me a really good job someday – I actually vomited in my dorm room, INTO A PLASTIC BAG, LIKE I WAS 19 YEARS OLD. That is what I call recapturing your youth.

Later the next day, one of the bartenders asked me how far along I am in my pregnancy. I AM NOT PREGNANT. Also, she was handing me a beer at the time. I don’t know if her next step was to harangue me for drinking whilst pregnant, or what. I mean, I get asked about my (non-existent) pregnancy at least four to six times a year, but this is the first time it’s happened while I was actively drinking an alcoholic beverage. I guess there’s first time for everything. I didn’t say anything at first. I just clutched at my fat little stomach with my non-beer-holding hand and gaped at her for a second until I mustered up the courage to explain that I am, in fact, just fat.

The really awkward thing about people asking about your pregnancy when you’re not pregnant is that, having realized their mistake, they never just let it go. They always go on about it. Instead of saying “Oh, I’m sorry” and shutting up or changing the subject, they stand there and yammer on for five minutes about how really, really pregnant you look and how the elastic waistband on those khakis makes them look like maternity trousers. It’s a gruesome train wreck of a conversation – body parts and pools of blood are lying everywhere, but you just can’t look away.

Of course, my classmates spent the rest of the day assuring me that I don’t look pregnant, because they’re true friends, but I do kind of look a little bit pregnant.

Also, this is a pretty great outfit I managed to throw together in literally 15 seconds.

Later that night, someone handed me a bottle of cinnamon whiskey, which I had never had before, and which I apparently drank most of. What can I say, it was delicious.

I have some vague memory of wandering the campus in the night, begging random alumnae I didn’t recognize to drink it with me. So people are going to be talking about that at the next reunion probably. (At this point I just don’t know what I’d do with myself if people weren’t gossiping about me.) Against all odds – I mean, MOTHERFUCKING MIRACULOUSLY – I managed to make it to breakfast the next morning, (at 8:00am, which is earlier than I wake up on some –okay, most – days when I’m sober) in my pyjamas, and discovered that everyone else is getting dressed to go to breakfast now. I’m not sure when they started doing that, but I bet it was around the time they stopped drinking entire bottles of whiskey by themselves.