A couple of months ago, I received an invitation to my 11th class reunion. (The fact that it was an 11th and not 10th should tell you something about our class right there.) The first thing I thought to do was throw it in the trash. Why in the world would I want to see those people again? I got rid of them and their cliques 11 years ago. Why go now?

I didn't throw it away. I'm still not quite sure why. Call it morbid curiosity. Anyway, I sent e-mail to the one person from high school that I still talk to; my best friend Doctor down in South Carolina. She wasn't sure if she was going. She had a conference scheduled that weekend.

So, I put it away and forgot about it. Then my friend e-mailed me and said she would be there. I figured, it'll be worth it to see her. We don't get to visit much with her being down there and me being in Ohio. Yeah, I'll go to see her.

I waited until the day of to contact someone from the "Reunion Committee" to let them know I would be coming. (Which, actually, turned out to my advantage. It didn't give them the chance to put my senior picture on the name badge. Ick!) My husband and I scrambled for wardens for the little ones and loaded the car.

I found myself being nervous. I also found myself being rather haughty and thinking, "I sure hope those people grew up." Like I was the perfect role model in the world and they should all live up to my standards. Well, for the most part, they didn't.

It broke down to the same old cliques, the same old comments, the same old people. I started wondering what the hell I was doing there. Why spend all that money to come see these people that I never talk to, never really wanted to? None of the "handful" of people that I would have liked to have talked to were there. My husband was bored stiff and the beer only came in cans. (God, I hate drinking from cans.) So, we took off early and went to play Vampire.

Since then, I've been wondering why we bother to have reunions. (O.K., so you spent twelve years of your life with these people, but it's not like that was a choice.) What do people expect from them? Why go see people you haven't talked to for ten years? Is it some kind of ego boost; see who remembers you, who has the better job, etc.?

I still don't know. But, I do know that I won't be going to another one.