I came across this questionnaire I got sent before my high-school class reunion. I thought I just share it, with my responses (well, except I added the pictures, of course).
1. What did you do immediately after high-school?: Immediately after high school my family took a bunch of awkward photos; then, I believe I went to that sponsored, all-night grad party, where I won a fishing pole. (Ka-ching!) After that, though, I went to college, where I received no fishing poles.
2. What kind of work do you do?: I teach, I write, and I make small, independent films (the budgets are small and independent, the films are normal sized).
3. Do you have a significant other?: My wife is Michele; how we met is a long story, each moment of which is more precious and delightful than the one before.
Ah, memories…
4. What’s your favorite high-school memory?: My favorite high-school memory would have to be that time that my girlfriend, my best friend and I all skipped school, we took my friend’s dad’s sports car, and we snuck in to a fancy restaurant and I wound up singing a Beatles’ song on a float in this big parade, and… wait… that wasn’t me.
5. What would you change about yourself since high-school?: I would fill in questionnaires with more gravity and seriousness.
6. If you could do high-school again, what would you do differently?: More everything: study more, play more, apply myself more, goof off more, appreciate things more and get in trouble more. Except sheer, awkward, adolescent dorkiness. I could do a little less of that. Oh, and I would resist the “mullet” trend.
Sometimes I like to kick-back and make things explode with the power of my mind. Sigh. When did I get so vanilla?
7. What are your hobbies and interests?: The usual, I suppose. Shark wrestling, starting doomsday cults, driving around in a van solving mysteries. Your basic ‘grown-up’ stuff.
8. Have you achieved your dreams?: Absolutely. Psh. Of course. Every single one of them. Life is just a smooth, level glide of bliss now. No, of course I haven’t! Has anyone? Great, now I have to go lie in the floor, consumed in existential despair and think about my failures in life. Thanks a lot, Reunion Questionnaire. Actually, I would I would be concerned if I’d chosen a path for myself in which I already had. Some things are going easily, most things are going with some difficulty, a few are very, very hard.
9. Any messages to your classmates?: COUGAR FOOTBALL RULES!!! WHOOOOOOO!!!!!
I felt like a king…
10. What accomplishment are you most proud of?: Probably winning that fishing pole at the graduation party. That was my peak… (*weeps quietly*).
11. One thing you wish you knew in high-school?: That you will regret the things you haven’t done even more than the things you have.
12. Your Favorite teacher and why: Experience. I know, BOOM, right? I’m totally wise. I’m like the Buddha.
The Byronic Man 
February 28, 2013 at 3:13 am
Haha, I could definitely appreciate the humor in the responses, the sarcasm struck me being eerily to stuff I used to say.
Us class clowns sure do catch a bad rep though don’t we? Im still trying to live down an incident from the 3rd grade…. Im definitely skipping THAT reunion.
February 28, 2013 at 1:18 pm
3rd grade was where I discovered my clownness, too. Weird.
February 28, 2013 at 7:50 pm
I actually think mine started a little earlier, 3rd grade was just a cruel joke played on me by the Elementary School gods or something.
After I brushed that one off as bestI could, grabbed what was left of my dignity and went back to human sacrifice to keep those sick bastards happy.
A surprisingly efficient payment method
February 28, 2013 at 4:21 am
Imposed nostalgia never tasted so good.
February 28, 2013 at 1:20 pm
It’s almost too bad it doesn’t go for the nostalgia jugular – it starts with regrets but really, where’s the “who’d you most wrong?” and “what opportunities did you never seize?”
February 28, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Ooo, I like that first question. And the corollary: “Who would you most like to exact revenge upon?”
February 28, 2013 at 4:22 am
I certainly hope that the reunion coordinators appreciated these responses as much as I did. They tend to take their High School Reunion Coordinator title a little serious some times.
February 28, 2013 at 1:18 pm
I think the survey also effectively answered the question: “Do you still use humor to keep people from getting to know you?”
February 28, 2013 at 4:22 am
Umm… why have Uncle Jesse and I not been invited to ride in this mystery-solving van, and why is there a funny-smelling smoke coming out the windows? And why does the driver have a mullet?
I bet you thought you’d already answered the hard questions, huh?
March 1, 2013 at 6:19 am
Well, the mystery solving gets pretty dull after a while. As soon as you meet old Mr. Witherspoon, you skip the dramatics and say, “You. You’re pretending to be the ghost. I know, I know, you’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for us meddling kids.”
February 28, 2013 at 4:36 am
I need to know a few more things:
1) Tell us the juicy details of how you met your wife in an upcoming post.
2) In this post, please post several photos of your mullet.
That’s all I ask.
February 28, 2013 at 6:02 am
Ditto.
March 1, 2013 at 6:21 am
I’ve thought about doing the “how we met post” but it really benefits from the joint telling. Maybe sometime I’ll have her co-author.
March 2, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Yes. Do that! A he said/she said thing…
February 28, 2013 at 4:46 am
Oh, B-Man. Are you a smartass? Yes.
And if you like, I can loan you a picture of my actual smart ass to show off to your old pals. Seriously, I just posted on this last nigh: http://fiftyfourandahalf.com/2013/02/27/hey-doc-do-i-need-this/
March 1, 2013 at 6:28 am
It’s so lucky to get someone to take a picture of your butt for you! Self-butt-portraits rarely turn out.
March 1, 2013 at 7:43 am
It is tough to get just the right angle and attitude in a self portrait.
February 28, 2013 at 4:56 am
I think it is so weird that we have the exact same hobbies and interests. My doomsday cult has shark-wrestling as a prerequisite.
March 1, 2013 at 6:22 am
That’s good. What’s worse than getting people in your doomsday cult and they lack basic aquatic-titan wrestling skills?
Nothing, that’s what.
February 28, 2013 at 5:17 am
As near as I have been able to discern, my reunion coordinators all tipple a little too much on a daily basis and would appreciate your answers immensely. Would you care to go to MY reunion in my place? I doubt they would notice the gender difference.
March 1, 2013 at 6:26 am
Are you kidding? Going to someone else’s reunion is the best! And the gender-reassignment will assure that you’re the star of party!
February 28, 2013 at 5:52 am
Good answers all. Very thoughtful. The committee will be pleased.
March 1, 2013 at 6:27 am
Actually, I secretly suspect my answers are why none of them ever showed up anywhere.
February 28, 2013 at 5:53 am
I’m not quite sure I see the smartassedness. Can you expound on your role as smartass and please use multiple examples? Show your work.
And hey . . . wanna go fishing this weekend?
March 1, 2013 at 6:29 am
Oh, it’s not for fishing – it’s really more of a trophy pole. It’s bronzed & over the fireplace. I tell everyone the story who comes over.
February 28, 2013 at 6:53 am
The Buddha… WITH… a fishing pole.
February 28, 2013 at 7:11 am
. . . .AND Scooby snacks.
March 1, 2013 at 6:29 am
He’d have been thinner if he’d eaten more fish.
February 28, 2013 at 7:08 am
I want to know all about your high school, where the graduation night traditions involve fishing. (insert senior class picture where everyone has a beard and is wearing big, yellow slickers like the Gorton’s Fisherman).
Aw, jeez, just realized I never got Mr. Buddha to sign my yearbook!
March 1, 2013 at 6:31 am
That was the best part: it was totally incongruous (the prizes were whatever area vendors donated), and if you’d asked every single person I knew in high school to describe me and my interests, fishing would have come up exactly no times.
February 28, 2013 at 9:00 am
Grad night was memorable for me too. I won a Sanyo boom box with a dual cassette recorder and CD player. Best prize a teenage girl could receive. Sadly, I haven’t won anything since.
March 1, 2013 at 6:32 am
Who needs anything else?? You can make COPIES of your cassettes!
February 28, 2013 at 9:58 am
Everything is different, but the same…things are more moderner than before…bigger, and yet smaller…it’s computers…
March 1, 2013 at 6:32 am
Bill & Ted is my 3rd favorite movie-going experience ever (behind Ferris Bueller and Pulp Fiction). Oh, how I love that movie.
March 1, 2013 at 6:33 am
Ah, B-Man, I like you more every day.
February 28, 2013 at 10:01 am
Did you end up going to the reunion?
At my 10 year reunion they made us wear buttons with our senior photos on them. No one recognized me. Seriously.
Still not sure if that was good or bad…
March 1, 2013 at 6:34 am
I remember some of both good and bad “who are you again?” situations. Some people had blossomed, others, you wondered why the old man was hanging around the drink table.
I’d ASSUME it was the blossoming one.
February 28, 2013 at 10:37 am
Man you’re reunion committee is on it. My last reunion was in a dark bar. I got a sticker with my name on it and a free drink ticket. I spent the whole night being called Carrie (which is not my name) by some girl I never hung out with in high school.
Oh, and you sir, are hilarious.
March 1, 2013 at 6:35 am
Apparently reunions are dying out in the Facebook age. Dark bars are about the best you can hope for. Shame. There’s something about them that’s strangely terrific.
February 28, 2013 at 10:43 am
I’m more than a little pissed off that I’ve never been sent a reunion questionnaire. I’m the opposite of Sally Field at the Oscars a kazillion years ago: “They really don’t love me!”
March 1, 2013 at 6:36 am
See, the person who drinks to much and finally lets it all out after all these years is half the reason to go to a reunion. It’s their loss.
My favorite reunion statement: “Hey I have that jacket, too! I was going to wear it, but didn’t want to look slutty.”
February 28, 2013 at 11:05 am
If only I had a fishing pole from high school. It’s so perfectly random and prestigious all at once. I haven’t yet achieved my dreams either, but I think I have a new dream and that is to win a fishing pole.
March 1, 2013 at 6:37 am
I know – it got lost through the years, but I wish I had it as a token of random, weird fun-ness.
February 28, 2013 at 11:14 am
What does the reunion committee plan to do with the completed questionnaires? [shifty eyes] Are they spies? Why is your fishing pole prize any of their business? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about the shark wrestling or the doomsday cult! I need answers, Byronic Man, REAL ANSWERS!
March 1, 2013 at 9:24 am
They never did publish them anywhere. I think they’re in some government file.
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
You graduated? Huh.
March 1, 2013 at 9:23 am
I just need that stupid PE credit. I think this is my year!
February 28, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Indeed, the Buddha is smiling. Then again, he’s always smiling.
March 1, 2013 at 9:26 am
It’s because he was voted “Most Likely To Be The Spiritual Savior of His People.”
March 1, 2013 at 9:33 am
Neat category. My school was too small and bereft of people to fulfill that category to have such category. And I was too busy with my boyfriend to be considered spiritual…
February 28, 2013 at 1:36 pm
Just found out we’re having my reunion on Facebook. Click here if you like male pattern baldness and pictures of grandkids!
March 1, 2013 at 9:25 am
I’ve heard that that’s the thing now. I think that sounds awful. Just unbearable. Nothing like drinking alone in the dark while reading other people boast about their accomplishments!
February 28, 2013 at 1:57 pm
good answers – you win some bait for your fishing pole!
March 1, 2013 at 9:27 am
Good – I think this jar or worms went bad a few years ago.
February 28, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Haha, as if smart-assness is something one grows out of, speaking from my own experience, it’s something one grows into. I don’t remember winning anything at my Senior All Night Party, but it’s fuzzy because I’m so old, lol.
March 1, 2013 at 9:29 am
The “sponsored” grad parties have gotten pretty insane. People win laptops, Playstations, sometimes there are even cars… it’s ridiculous.
March 1, 2013 at 11:46 am
High School. *shudder*
March 4, 2013 at 9:29 am
I’m so glad I have never had to answer one of those questionnaires. You are wise. Very wise like the Budha.
March 7, 2013 at 10:51 am
Experience is truly a great teacher. I totally agree with your “what I’d do different if I had to do high school again” answer: more of everything. Especially goofing off. I was kind of a goody-two-shoes, I could have gotten in way more trouble in high school and still turned out ok. Only I didn’t know that at the time.
March 7, 2013 at 11:15 am
No, they really have you thinking that one slip up and it will be held against you forever.
March 7, 2013 at 5:44 pm
I had aspirations in high school of authoring the Best Humor Blog Ever. And that was pretty ambitious given that Al Gore hadn’t even invented the internet back then. Now I can only aspire to author the Best Humor Blog Not Written By The Byronic Man.
Great post!
March 10, 2013 at 11:10 am
Reblogged this on the fun facebook zone.