Hannah Riley
Are there people who actually look forward to high school reunions or are we all going because we still don’t really feel like adults? One of the main redeeming factors of going to a reunion is all the exciting drama you might get to see. Between newly-divorced high school sweethearts, the popular kid turned loser, or just having the guts to finally vandalize something you always wanted to, there’s a little something in them for everyone.
People on Reddit are sharing the worst things that have ever happened at a high school reunion and their stories are pretty juicy.
1.
My 10-year reunion killed itself before it happened.
Turns out our class president (traditionally in charge of organizing) took a hard turn into a Footloose character after high school.)
Highlights of her event planning include:
* No alcohol allowed, not even BYOB.
* A few classmates in a reasonably successful band offered to play for free. She was adamant there would be no music or dancing.
* Plus ones were to be spouses only. Two guys happily told her they’d bring their husbands, and she kicked them both from the Facebook page.
* The venue was the high school’s soccer field. In Iowa. In August. We were welcome to bring our own chairs.
* A few people offered to bring beanbags and bocce and similar games. She said no, because it would make the reunion “too much like tailgating.”
* Suggested entertainment was a guided tour of the school, which had undergone zero change since we graduated.
* Catering was from Hy Vee, which is a grocery store. Their food is actually OK, but —
* Tickets were $60.
It was ultimately canceled because out of our class of 300, less than 10 people bought tickets.
2.
We’d been there less than an hour. Having a great time reconnecting. Suddenly an old friend approached and said, “Is that your wife over there? She’s pretty hammered” And as we watched, she tripped and fell face-first, full-body crash onto a 12-top table where many of my old classmates were sitting.
The table broke, food and drinks flew everywhere, I walked over, scooped her up, and half-carried/half-walked her out the door. She took Xanax before going (unbeknownst to me) and was an alcoholic who started slamming drinks as soon as she got there. So…good times.
3.
Small college reunion with my core group of friends from university. This was about 5 years after graduation. We all partied pretty hard in school, but mellowed out in our late twenties. Decided to all meet up for dinner at a local bar/restaurant. Think Applebees, but nicer.
One guy showed up already wasted, with a duffle bag full of multiple packets of weed and the bottle he started on before meeting us. He decided we were boring, finished his bottle in the restroom, and refused to come out. He ended up passing out there.
Bartender kicked him out. He came alone in an uber, and we had no idea where he lived. None of us wanted to take him to our places (he was angry, puking and belligerent), so we dropped him off at his last known address.
His parents’ house.
Both of them answered the door, and we handed him over. It was past midnight and incredibly awkward.
He’s not invited to the next reunion.
4.
The people who were supposed to plan our high school reunion dropped the ball, so I figured it wouldn’t happen. But then this other dude from our high school stepped up to plan it. He was in a graduate program and also working part-time at a banquet hall, and he said that his boss would give us the banquet hall space for free. It was a really nice gesture, and he seemed really into it. He had been miserable in high school. Grumpy, sullen, unpleasant, mean to other people. He came out in college, so maybe the weight of having to keep it a secret was part of why he was so unpleasant. Maybe he’d be more fun now.
I was working a sh*t job and had no savings at the time, so I was neither interested in having my former classmates pity me nor was I gunning to shell out a lot of money to attend. Plus my ex might be there and that didn’t feel worth it. The organizer made a facebook event and asked people to venmo him the cost of admission prior to attending. He wanted something like $15-20 ahead, I can’t remember. Anyway, it didn’t really feel with paying for. Maybe if there would be some drinks included or something, I would go for an hour.
I sent him a private message asking what the admissions ticket covered — Food? Drinks? The space was free, after all. He posted publicly on the facebook page that if the cost of admission was too steep, “message me and we can work out some financial aid.” Uh, what? I then publicly posted, asking what the admission cost covered. No response. Other people asked too. He said it would go towards having a bartender and server dedicated to the event space, as well as towards food. Okay, fair.
Folks, HE WAS THE SERVER. My friend showed up having not yet paid him, and he barred her entry. The people who had paid the admission cost showed up to an empty banquet hall, were given a menu by their former classmate, and told to order their own food and drink from him. He pocketed the admission ticket money as his fee.
After an hour, he brought out one (1) grocery store sheet cake for 75 people to share. That was it.
5.
The other was a guy who was so snooty back in high school. We’re talking the cliche “if your address wasn’t within a certain neighborhood, you weren’t good enough to acknowledge: kind of snobbery. Well, he arrived late for the dinner portion and all the seats at his old friend’s table were already taken. So he sullenly sat down with the likes of us.
Yikes.
Having to sit with people you looked down on all your teenage life. The poor man. So I took pity on him because most of the people at the table probably remembered his attitude as well and ignored him. I started asking him questions…of how he’s faired since graduation, etc. This was our conversation while the DJ was blasting music and others were yelling over the din to be heard within their own chats.
Me: “So what are you doing now, Snob?” (The name of the guy was changed to protect the innocent)
Snob: “I work at Smith, Smith & Smith Attorney Law Firm.” (Not a real company, but you get the gist.)
Me: “That’s impressive. Are you a lawyer? Studying to be a lawyer?”
Snob: “No. I’m working on it.”
Me: “Oh? Articling at your law firm?”
Snob: “No.”
Me: “You work at Smith, Smith & Smith. So what exactly is it that you do?”
Movie moment, I kid you not. The DJ cut the music so that the MC could make the announcement that dinner was to be served shortly. But before that happened…
Snob got frustrated with all my questions and stated loudly into the unexpected silence: “I’m a mailroom clerk!”
Everyone stared and hate to say this…accidental justice was served. Snob was taken down a peg or two by his own hands.
6.
At my 10-year high school reunion, we had a decent turnout, maybe 100+ people. We were at a pretty nice hotel banquet hall.
There was one guy I had known all through high school, and he was a well-known stoner. I’ll call him Chris for this story.
I see Chris walk in to the banquet hall, stop in his tracks, turn around in a very slow 360 degree circle, surveying the entire room. He just says, “Whoa…”, and he looks visibly alarmed.
He stops and his eyes settle on me. I say, “Hey, Chris! Long time no see, man!”. He kind of slides over to me and whispers in my ear, “This is really weird… I’m pretty sure I know every single person in this room.” And that is when I realize he is wearing the same clothes as all the banquet hall workers.
OH MY GOD. CHRIS IS WORKING AS A SERVER AT HIS OWN HIGH SCHOOL REUNION, AND HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I walk him out to the front lobby, and explain it’s our 10 year high school reunion. He is mortified, beyond embarrassed. Well, he was never contacted, and didn’t even realize it had been 10 years since we graduated. He just knew he was working another catering gig in a neverending series of catering gigs.
I make him take me to his manager. I explain what is happening and tell the manager there is NO WAY this guy is working his own high school reunion. Awesomely, the manager agrees. We find a different suit jacket and tie for him, and I take Chris back to the party. He ended up having a good night.
7.
Some girl confessed to cheating on her high school sweetheart, thinking enough time had passed it wouldn’t bother him. She thought wrong…
The reunion was 10 years later. The two of them hadn’t seen each other in years, as far as I know they broke up shortly after high school ended. After she broke the news, somewhat nonchalantly as well, the guy flipped out and slapped her, then started screaming at her. She ran away, at which point he broke down and said something about wasting his high school years and left. We still managed to have a good time even after all that though, which was nice…
8.
My mother went back to her 40-year reunion last summer. In December she left my father (36 years of marriage) for her high school sweetheart and is now living with him.
9.
Five-year reunion- one guy (always kind of a marginal figure in HS, but a nice person), after some sort of discussion, got his paycheck out and got loud saying “Now do you think I’m a loser?” “Don’t believe how much I make? Check this out” Of course, he just made things worse, and everyone was laughing at him. I mean – he had his paycheck on him? Haven’t seen him since, BTW.
– ev_61483
10.
This guy slammed some warm Natty Light during beer pong, then held his wrist up to this mouth as if it were coming back up, and then he projectile vomited. The best part is that all of it somehow SHOT forcefully from his fingers like Spiderman and we WEBBED everyone on that side of the room with vomit. It was full of cooked onions.
11.
I didn’t go to my 10-year reunion but my entire friend group did and they all called me asking where I was.
While on the phone with one of them, he goes “Oh sh*t, Brittany is here”.
Brittany was a train wreck in high school and apparently hadn’t changed in 10 years. She proceeded to get trashed, get in a fight with a waitress, and did meth in the bathroom. Police picked her up that night after she was found passed out in the McDonald’s bathroom.
12.
At my 20 year reunion – two decades after high school – two guys got arrested for fist fighting on the sidewalk outside the bar we went to Friday night.
Why were they fighting? One of the guys slept with the other guy’s girlfriend in high school 20 years ago and drunkenly brought up the fling. Neither of them married her, or even dated her after high school.
13.
At my 10-year reunion, the organizers were doing the thing where they give “awards” for the person who came the farthest to attend, the person with the most kids, etc. The award came up for who had the oldest kid, and people started shouting out their kids’ ages.
When it quieted down, this shy girl near the front said in a normal voice, “11” and then we all realized why we had stopped seeing Heather right before graduation.
14.
It wasn’t really bad, just odd. A guy came with full KISS-style makeup on – white face, black shapes around his eyes, and black lips. We were too awkward and polite to mention it, so everyone just chatted with him as though it was completely normal to turn up like that.
15.
My therapist encouraged me to go to my 10-year reunion. Which, in retrospect, was probably a play for job security.
