Pack your bags, kids! We’re taking a road trip!
As I mentioned in one of my last posts (I don’t know which one – look it up. There’s only a dozen or so of them on here, it can’t be that hard to find. Help me out, dammit!) – I have my high school reunion coming up. Well, lo and behold, the time is upon us and the family and I will be making the always-enjoyable 9-hour trek to Ohio for the festivities.
The trip to Ohio is always a good time for me. It’s also incredibly stressful, hectic and overall just gets on my last nerve.
I can’t wait.
You see, pretty much my entire immediate family and a majority of my friends still live up there. As a result, what should be a nice, relaxing few days away from the drudgery of my every day life here, becomes a quest to try and visit as many people as humanly possible in a two or three day span. This is not enjoyable.
Well, the seeing everyone part is. The trying to do so is an ENORMOUS pain in the ass.
Of course, everyone tries to be accommodating – telling me they understand if I can’t make it out to see them and all that. And, I certainly believe that to be the case. Unfortunately, I carry around an enormous amount of guilt with me, and if I’m not able to adequately spend enough time with everyone then I feel like I’ve let someone down – which pretty much turns me into Nancy Kerrigan after getting blasted in her knee on the ride home.
Of course, the obvious solution to this problem would be to come up when I have enough time to make sure I’m able to get all my visits in without problem. But, that would be simplifying things and why on earth would I want to do something like that?
So, now, not only do I have to try and make time to visit with everyone, but I’m going to have to do so on an even more limited schedule than normal, as I have reunion stuff to deal with both evenings we’ll be there.
This wouldn’t be so bad if I was super-thrilled for the reunion, but I’m not.
Don’t get me wrong – its not that I’m not looking forward to it. And, I’m sure it will be a good time. It’s just that – honestly – school was a fairly uneventful experience for me. I didn’t hate it or anything like that – let’s just say that if my high school experience was like a John Hughes movie, I’d be one of the extras sitting on the bleachers while Anthony Michael Hall was trying to put the moves on Molly Ringwald. I wasn’t beaten up, or bullied or otherwise tormented by anyone or anything of the like. I was just kind of there. Wasn’t quite geeky enough to earn the ridicule of the cool kids, but wasn’t cool enough to ever get invited to hang out with any of them, either.
That being said, there’s definitely a few people there that I’m looking forward to seeing this weekend. Thanks to the advent of sites like Facebook, I’ve been able to get in touch with a lot of people from back in the day, and I’m certainly jazzed about getting to see some of them. One can hope the feeling is mutual, but I’ve learned not to get too hung up on these sorts of things.
On the bright side, I’ll get to see my parents, they’ll get to see the grand babies and I’ll get to bring back a new set of cornhole boards. And, if that’s not enough to make the trip worthwhile, I get to make a pit stop somewhere in Appalachia during the drive as well. And, that, my friends – almost makes all the agita that comes beforehand worthwhile.
2 comments:
True story - When Terry and I were driving down to your wedding, we stopped in West Virginia to get gas. Two guys pull up in a pick-up wearing camo from head to toe, two shotguns in a rack in the back of the truck (I know, in West Virginia of all places, right?) The gas station clerk, who can see all this, actually asks them, "Going huntin'?" To which one of them replies in a barely audible grunt, "Yep." End of conversation.
I laughed for days.
Well, in West Virginia - that's a valid question, even in said scenario. Sounds like the gas station attendant couldn't tell if they were wearing their "hunting camo" or their "formal camo." Its a common mistake...
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