Going to your hometown's Thanksgiving high school football game sounds like a good idea until you actually do it.
In theory, there's something romantic about journeying back to your old stomping grounds. You envision yourself reminiscing with long-lost friends about all of the mischief you used to get into, and maybe you'll tell that girl who turned you down about what a success you've become.
But in reality, you wind up driving around the stadium for half an hour looking for parking. Oddly enough, it seems as if hundreds of other graduates who are looking to relive their glory days decided to come to the big game, too.
Oh, and here they are: Still driving the same, broken down Volvo Station Wagons with wood paneling that they did senior year. For whatever reason, a bunch of dudes renaming their grandmothers' old cars after their teenage sexual conquests just doesn't seem as cool as it used to.
In fact, a lot of things about your high school past don't match up to your memories. Skipping class to drink a 40 in the woods used to get you laid. Now, it all just seems kind of sad.
You were nothing more than an entitled, scrawny, deceitful punk who thought you were all that because you could buy an overpriced 30-rack of Keystone Light with a fake ID at the town liquor store. It's best that you bury that version of yourself along with the letterman's jacket that you used to wear to house parties – or, as they should've been referred to: "Drink as much crappy vodka as you can before my mom gets back!"
Nostalgia and reality don't mix. There's a reason why you haven't talked to 90 percent of these people in years.
Save yourself the frustration of suffering through three hours of smalltalk just to see the couple of buddies who you want to catch up. Chances are, you won't see them at the game anyway. They'll be seated deep in the bleachers, lost in the morass of mediocrity that is your high school graduating class.
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