High school memories and tall tales

There are only three reasons to ever hear from a former high school classmate: someone died, someone got married or someone is giving me money. So when my high school sent me a copy of its alumni magazine, I immediately turned to the back and looked for obituaries and/or a check. However, there was neither.

To get an alumni magazine, you have to go to a special type of high school. By special, I mean a high school where people wear ties and brown shoes and aspire to go to Harvard and end up going to Harvard because their parents know Fred, and Fred owns Harvard. Anyone whose parents don’t know Fred has to go to Princeton.

The concept of an alumni magazine is pretty simple. It has lots of glossy photographs of kids smiling and having fun that are supposed to make you think that you had fun in high school. But, in reality you didn’t have fun because you had to wear a tie to school and your parents didn’t know Fred. However, by the time you finish reading the magazine — you don’t actually read the magazine because there aren’t any words except for the little captions that say, “Here are some happy students” — you are convinced that you too were a happy student. Why would they want you to think you had fun in high school? So you’ll give them money that can pay for more alumni magazines.

So anyway, I got this alumni magazine and in the back it has information on, you guessed it, the alumni. There are big headings with the class year and then interesting facts about a few members of that class. For example: Class of ’78 Bob Crankenshaft is a zookeeper in Minneapolis (Bob’s parents didn’t know Fred either).

When it came to my class, there was information about five people including John Fargawyle who is majoring in economics at Harvard, Lizzy Sniderhousen who had a great time traveling over the summer, and Mike Janckobuzzner who is living with Tom Thomasthompson. I think there were a few more blurbs, but by the time I had gotten to them I had lost the will to live, let alone read.

These blurbs obviously left me disturbed. First, because there are people out there with names like “Fargawyle” and, second, because I know them. Of course, I was also disturbed because those seem to be the most exciting people out of my entire graduating class. Apparently, nobody else has a major yet or had fun over the summer or even has a roommate.

I got a little upset because I had a fun summer, know my major, and have a roommate — yet I was not mentioned anywhere. What’s up with that? True, I don’t know Fred over at Harvard, but I’m still important. So, I decided to write a letter about myself and send it to my school so that they could put me in the next alumni magazine because, let’s be honest, life is nothing unless it makes your classmates feel like their life is nothing.

I put a lot of thought into what to write because, after all, this is my life I’m talking about. The information had to be noteworthy, yet believable. I immediately ruled out anything having to do with charity work or being an astronaut because it’s just not impressive enough. I also had to eliminate anything about a mime-killing-spree because, while impressive, it probably doesn’t send the right message (the same goes for being Ralph Nader’s campaign manager).

In the end, I decided on sending in this blurb: “After a brief stint in Southern Mozambique curing really rare diseases, Grant Myers returned home where he was greeted by the president and honored with a state dinner to celebrate his Nobel Peace Prize. He is set to be canonized next month.” I’m just disappointed that there isn’t a war somewhere because I could have given myself the Congressional Medal of Honor and command of the Navy.

Of course, there are probably some economics majors out there who are saying, “Grant, nobody is going to believe that you won a Nobel Peace Prize!” That’s just nonsense. Of course people will believe it — people will believe anything they read. I’m willing to bet that Lizzy Sniderhousen did not have a great summer. In fact, I bet she had a horrible summer. However, it’s in the magazine, so people just go ahead and assume that she had a great summer, when in reality she was probably mauled by a swordfish or something. So, when they read that I was knighted by the King of Spain and given Australia as a birthday gift, everyone will just smile and say, “Wow, Grant owns Australia. Maybe he can get me a Koala.” At least when my classmates see my blurb they’ll know I’m not dead. Maybe then they’ll give me some money.