After only three years since graduation, my high school, St. Patrick C.S.S.had a reunion. Perhaps a bit too early, but the school had turned 10 year sold, and everyone wanted to celebrate. Well, maybe not everyone considering the amount of people that bothered to show up. Perhaps not many people received the invitations -- I for once did not. Others probably couldn't get their Parol Officer to let them come.
I asked the secretary that sent out the invitations why they did not send me one.
"WE sent it to you" she sneered.
"Yeah, perhaps you did -- but I still did not get one"
"Well, that's probably because you moved from where you originally lived"
"How can that be" I asked "I haven't moved for the past 7 years"
"Well, we sent them out, and you got here anyway" and she walked away.
For the humble cost of $15 dollars we had a wonderful dinner of lasagna(the vegetarian one looked exactly the same as the meat lasagna), tender veal, tasty potatoes and steamed carrots with a crumchy salad. The money also payed for the mass, local political leaders giving us their speeches,a nametag and a slide show.
It felt as if I had never left school. Some people where being snobs,showing off how cool they where (Yeah, you look really good with dyed blonde hair, and a purple shirt -- oh, I just have to be your friend now that you turned out so cool). Others would look at me, but for some reason pretend they had not seen me. This caused me from just walking by them and saying"hiya.." with very little interest and keep on walking, until they would stop me with a "Oh, hi Leandro". It was really good to bump in a couple of other people I had not seen in a while. We went for a walk down memory lane, talking about the past, the evil things we did, and made fun of the few people that did bother to show up. With my friends (people that I still keep in touch even after high school) we bitched and complained of all the new rooms they have in the basement, the new British green uniforms (from the former puke green we had to wear), and those anti-Philipino graffiti blue washrooms.
After waiting for a good hour for our food, we finally were told to get up and get it. I had a beer, on an empty stomach and found it a little difficult getting there. The food was being served from the Cafeteria's serving room, although I was overwhelmed by the quality of the food. The well cooked lasagna (spoon anyone?), the salad with no dressing on top, and too much dressing at the bottom, the ping-pong ball shaped potatoes(although they tasted much like charred ping-pong balls, the lean veal which was incredibly soft (I was able to cut it with the plastic fork we had been provided with)and least we forget, the albino carrots. I thought carrots were meant to be orange. Oh well.
By the time the slide show started, half of the people that were there had left. Actually, the slide show started after an hour of speeches from the current principal, the former principal, the school representative of the time and some other politicians that either had done something for the school and/or wanted something from the school. No wonder we were allowed to bring beer inside the auditorium. By the time everything would've been done, we'd be sober again. Finally the "ST. PATRICK SUPERSHOW" started,with terrible hip-hop/dance music and poorly oriented images. Slowly, one by one, we all got up and waited outside.
I was thinking the reunion would've been bad, but this was worse than I had possibly imagined. Of all the people I went to school with, I was glad to see those that had graduated way before me (and take some obscene pictures with them as well). Perhaps a little surprised to see so little of the one sthat graduated with me. Can't wait to go for the 25th anniversary.
"Kuleshov Effect": Just Add Smirnoff
Metadata: