The time has come. You bid all your friends a tearful goodbye because you cannot imagine being without them for seven hours, let alone seven days. You take a crappy flight/train/car ride back home, glaring at any strangers who attempt to make conversation. Look, random 30-year-old dude, it’s great that you love Stanford, but I really just want to sleep. I’m not in the mood to talk to you about how your start-up just received angel investors and is going to revolutionize the cryptocurrency industry or whatever. Stop hitting on me or networking with me or whatever the f*ck you’re trying to do.
If you live in a dorm, arriving home means you get to enjoy your first home-cooked meal in weeks. If you live in an apartment, probably the same because of ~Postmates~. Your mom is probably already yelling at you for not helping out with the dishes (like why do I have chores again?). That’s when your high school group chat starts blowing up with “Oh my god we haven’t seen each other in forever” texts.
All you want to do is watch Netflix and sleep until Thanksgiving comes. However. There’s a plot twist. Somehow, you’ve been coerced into going out. It’s the night before Thanksgiving, the most popular time to see everyone from high school that you were hoping to never see again. (Unless you’re one of those people that goes to college with half of your high school and never makes any new friends, *cough cough* half of my high school.)
You tell your parents you’re going out, and they:
a) Get annoyed because you’re missing out on family time. How could you not want to listen to your dad and grandfather argue about politics? What about a nice game of family Monopoly? Listen, mom, it’s not my fault my friends are forcing me to go out. TBH I would much rather be taking a bath right now and watching Friends for the 400th time, but you can’t have it all
b) Try to institute a curfew, which is weird because you’re used to staying up until 7am without anyone caring. Who the hell is home by midnight anymore? Parties don’t even get fun until 11:30. Time to remind your parents that you’re a legal adult and therefore don’t have to listen to anything they tell you. You then get a whole speech about how they still pay for everything. Therefore you def do have some obligation to listen to them.
c) Remind you to stay safe. Yes, mom, haven’t done this a hundred billion times by now.
After sifting through all your clothes (because you left everything cute at school), you find a decent crop top and your biggest jacket because HOLY SH*T it is freezing outside. You go and meet up at your one friend’s house that is not currently flooded with their entire extended family.
You see all your old friends from high school, which involves lots of hugging and screaming and rapid stories about a bunch of people you don’t know so that you, and everyone else, is clear that their life is amazing. Cue pretending to care about knowing the social hierarchy of all the sororities at your school. Totally not checking Instagram and ignoring you right now.
Now the vodka is starting to hit. This is gonna be a weird f*cking night. You and your friends take a billion photos, which you post to your story mostly because you want people back at college to think you’re actually having fun over the holidays. High school 5ever!
Depending on if you live in a boring town that literally doesn’t have any bars for people under 40 or in an actually exciting city, you head to a house party or a club and prepare yourself to see everyone.
If your high school was anything like mine, all the girls were absurdly tanned, aggressively highlighted, and a ripe five pounds. The boys will inevitably be dressed in high school apparel because you should rep high school forever, obviously. Best time of your life? Right?
Suddenly, EVERYONE is there. Like, why did Alice go that blond, it looks so fake? And Jesus, Nick already has a beer gut…so much for being the star athlete in high school. Every other conversation is “Omigod so good to see you we should get lunch sometime!” Haha, bitch never talking to you again. Time for more photos!
A decent song comes on and you all start dancing. You see a guy from your high school you once were, like, in love with. Then you wonder why because you’d legit never go for him now. Ew, did you even have standards when you were 16? Seriously, who the f*ck were you?
It’s 12am and you find yourself remembering that curfew your mom gave you. You hate following rules, but honestly, everyone is so lame anyway. You accomplished your goal of seeing the two people you still care about from high school.
You hug and lie to everyone that you’ll make plans and hang out soon. Then, you hop in your Uber back home to dream about Thanksgiving. Soon, you will be eating five flavors of pie, sweet potato casserole, and stuffing. You’ll be very happy you’re not wearing a crop top too. By the time you get bored of eating Thanksgiving leftovers (is that even possible though?) you’ll be heading back to your normal life. This weird trip down memory lane will have just been a dream… until winter break when you come home and do it all again.
Images: Giphy (3); Matan Segev/Pexels
We all know what Thanksgiving means. It’s a time to come together with 4-400 of your worst closest relatives to scream about politics celebrate all the many things you have to be grateful for that year. The night before Thanksgiving, however, is just as drunk sacred a holiday, and TBH it’s time someone talked about it. Thanksgiving Eve is the one night a year when you can relive your high school years by hitting up local bars in your hometown and trying to see if people are still hot how the people from your high school turned out. In honor of this blessed event, we’re releasing our original poem ‘Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving. TBH, I’ll be shocked if parents don’t read this to their children for many years to come.
‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving
And all through the streets
People who haven’t spoken since high school are preparing to meet
On Instagram they’re posting new thirst traps with care
In hopes that that hot guy from freshman year will be there
Grandmas and grandpas are all snug in their beds
As visions of you as a lawyer dance in their heads
My bestie in her choker, and me in my tiny-ass dress
Had just arrived at da clurb
To get twisted AF
At the end of the bar my bestie puked in a cup
So we hauled ass to the ladies to before anyone could tell what was up
Then away to the DJ we tore in a flash
And ran straight into my high school prom date, asking to crash
At my place because he was “too drunk to go home”
So I ghosted his ass because no…just no…
As the disco ball gave light to the dance floor below
My friend goes, “These dudes are all fives we should GTFO”
When what to my wandering eye should appear—a full 7, maybe 8—if I have one more beer
I felt like I recognized him, but couldn’t tell from where
I don’t remember anyone from high school having such good hair
He’s immediately swarmed by an army of thots
I guess it pays off to be like, hometown hot
Bye, Ashley! Bye, Emma! Bye, Britney and Karen!
These chicks are too thirsty, you can see them all starin’
Surrounded by people whose names I forget
I say to my bestie, “Why hasn’t he talked to me yet?”
And then in a twinkle, I heard hometown guy say, “Do you want a drink?”
And I’m like, “Okay”
That’s when I saw him, for real in the light, and immediately texted my bestie in fright
I remember this dude! This creepy-ass dweeb! It’s the guy who got a boner in home room—what was his name?—Steve?
“Steve’s hot now!” I text, hoping not to be seen
Trying to remember if I’d ever talked to him, or if I was mean
“Do you remember me?” he asked, with a goofy-ass grin
“A little,” I answer, “Ugh—is this gin?”
Then he starts going off about how I was a bitch
And I’m like, “Hold up, Mr. 7, you’re not hot enough for this!”
Then would you believe it, this freak still wants to hook up
I send a side-eye to my friend cuz like, enough is enough
I throw my drink in his face and post his tears to my story
I’m not taking this shit, I’m not nearly that horny
Where the fuck is my friend? Oh, she’s dancing on the bar
I tell her “Steve’s over. He’s cancelled. He took it too far.”
I look around me to see all the girls I used to hate
Now I have to make conversation and be fake
Some chick named Megan tells me she just bought a house
And I’m like, “Weren’t you the girl who fainted when we dissected a mouse?”
Two girls from my track team start blabbering about their kids
And I’m like “Fuck, I need to get out of here. I’m too young for this.”
I take out my phone and I call us an Uber
Just because I’m 27 now doesn’t mean I’m gonna hang out with losers
We Irish goodbye so no one notices our disappearance
Now it’s time to go home and eat pie with my parents…
Happy Hangover Thanksgiving, from my desire to show people who barely remember me from my high school that I’m cool now, to yours!
