PROJECT: HIGH SCHOOL

Huh, I don't think we're in Shermer, IL, anymore.

The dream is always the same. I primp and preen in front of the mirror until I am confident that I look just a little better than I feel. Mental checklist: VANS tennis shoes, parachute pants or faded LEVI's 501 jeans, an Ocean Pacific T-shirt or better yet an Izod or POLO shirt (depending on how good I am feeling in my dream)and a SWATCH around my wrist. I go outside my two story brick house and glide onto the bus that is waiting curbside. As I walk to the back of the bus the emergency exit opens and I am at the front doors of the highschool and I saunter through somekind of electric meter reader and I realize that not only am I the center of every teenage angst movie ever created but that I am dressed all wrong for the part. Nobody is wearing VANS, or OP's. It's like the walking into a meeting naked dream except more intense.

This is not a John Hughes movie where each group/clique signifies and stands up for a particular highschool insecurity and heartache. No this is the real deal highschool. Cruelty and all.

Today, I had to go into my daughters highschool before school. Each area of the commons were made up of the same groups from when I was in highschool, as I'm sure you remember also.

But they seem so much more confident than my generation did. We were all kind os shell shocked in highschool. Computer lab was learning a DOS program that did simple math, pagers were for doctors and drug dealers (cell phones were barely on the horizon)and yes, MTV played videos.

Who are these kids today? Then I remembered the valuable advice Mr. Hughes gave everyone in the eighties...

"You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours,

The Breakfast Club

I swear to God all the groups are still present and accounted for in todays highschool. I was so overwhelmed by the experience I think I started breaking into hives.

Pyramid Schemes and Birthday Parties

I am the most happy go lucky person you will ever meet. I believe that everyone holds promise of some sort (even if the promise is just that they make me laugh because of their actions).

I am lucky I have a sense of humor.

Man-o-mine comes from a large family. There is approximately one birthday party a month on his side of the family and this weekend was no exception.

Scheduled to start at 2 p.m. I became aware that something was going on at 2:30 when we were asked to pull up our chairs and get prepaired to change our lives. Yes, man-o-mines Aunt and Uncle had discovered a product so versatile, so functional, and so amazing our lives would never be the same.

I came for a bar-b-cue and instead was afflicted with information about how this particlur product increases gas mileage by approximately 7 miles per gallon.

Of course, this wonderful product is not available through stores but only through a licensed dealer, like them.

Luckily, this is a ground floor opportunity for people who are truly adventurous...and not to bright...because, for a couple of thousand dollars you can buy a distributorship. Yippee!

I pondered this ettiquete question all night long and finally decided that Emily Post and Miss Manners would have a stroke if they knew people were now turning birthday parties into franchise opportunities.

Then I remembered the wedding shower I was invited to. A Pampered Chef shower. All I need to bring is cash, the hostess is on commission and the bride elect gets to point out all of the awesome products she wants as her friends grapple to call dibs on the more economical items chosen.

Did I mention that the hostess gets commission?

Is the trend really to get reimbursed for the cost of the party? Is the purpose of a party to make money a profit of friends and family?