Two Reunions

This summer, P has had two reunions, but neither are the kind you would expect. In June, we attended a weekend-long reunion of his Junior High class. There were only 8 people in his 8th grade class, so it was fun to have them all together again.

As random as that is, I think last night's reunion is even more random. We got together with P's college housemates. Now, this in itself doesn't sound so weird, but I feel compelled to retell the night's events.

We showed up in front of their old college house, which they had named "Paradise City". It has since been renamed several times, but ironically is called "Paradise City" once more with no connection to the original name. After all of the roomies showed up, including one who now lives in CO and another who drove in from Pittsburgh just for this event, we knocked on the door of the house to see if we could have our reunion in their yard. The confused college girls seemed less freaked out once they saw that we had kids with us. They agreed, and the next thing you know, we had music plugged in (led off by "Paradise City" of course), corn hole set up, and blankets and chairs on the ground in the front yard of their old college house.

After a little while, one of the old roomies asked if we could get a tour of the house. The girls agreed, and led all 10 of us plus 2 kids through their home. They had no idea how giddy they were making these 30 year old men. The old stories started rolling out, and at each turn of a corner, someone had another, "Oh, remember..." story. It was so fun to watch.

Now, this seems awkward enough already, but don't worry, the awkwardness is only just beginning. After about 15 min. of wandering through their house, one of the guys asked if he would be allowed to climb into a hidden storage crawl space to retreive a "Paradise City Time Capsule." She granted him permission, so he pulls out a head lamp and crawls into a tunnel opening about the size of a checkerboard inside this girl's closet. He finally emerged successfully carrying a plastic container ducktaped shut.

We brought it into these girls' living room, and all of the guys gathered around to open it together. The contents were random and included the following: a pink flamingo, a bon jovi poster, old unopened mail for each of the guys (luckily nothing was too important), other random items that had adorned the walls during college and a collage of pictures of the roomates from each year that they lived together.

We ended up staying in these girls' house for probably an hour and were finally able to drag the guys out when one of the wives declared that she was hungry, and since she's pregnant, you don't mess with a pregnant hungry woman.

Don't worry, it was all documented on video and in pictures. I am still laughing about it thinking of what these girls must have thought. I can't imagine this was how they had planned on spending their Thursday evening, but they were so gracious and hospitable as they allowed these grown men to take a trip down memory lane. Thanks to the girls from the new Paradise City for allowing this random reunion to occur and to be so much fun!