Hank and I strode up to the hotel where her 25 Year High School reunion was being held. We prepared ourselves to crash it. The following actions were on our to-do list:

1. Concoct a scheme for breaking into the event
2. De-sober-ize
3. Craft ridiculous alter ego for me

After getting a couple of martinis from the hotel bar, we scouted the reunion room. We noted that a sit-down dinner was provided and people were expected to wear name tags. The name tags were pre-made and were displayed on a check-in that was staffed by a couple of dupable-looking people.

Me: So, what's our story here? How do we get these people to let us in?
Hank: I'll say that I lost my invitation.
Me: No. Say that you never received your invitation. That's even the truth! Be indignant! Say that your family moved a lot.
Hank: That's good.
Mike: Yeah, it is. I'm sure lots of folks just aren't easily trackable. There's no need to mention that you didn't graduate from here. You just never got your invitation. Also, I'm going to be an astronaut.
Hank: Ok.

We marched up to the table and Hank guiltily stammered, "I don't have my invitation!"

I glared at her.

"Can we buy tickets now?" she begged.

The check-in folks happily agreed, and for the low low price of $70 (each!), they scribbled our names onto some stickers and handed them to us. Now officially stickered, Hank and I legitimately wandered our way into the dining room. Within moments the senior class president swooped down to investigate who we were. She and Hank had no memory of each other, but she seemed like a nice enough woman. I steeled myself for the next set of lies, placing the phrases "I'm an astronaut" and "NASA recruited me for my sperm motility" on the tip of my tongue.

"So, what do you do you guys do for a living?" I casually asked the president and her husband.

"We're both pilots" she replied.

"I'mAComputerProgrammer!" I blurted out instantly.

And that's how we "crashed" the reunion. As it turns out, 25 year high school reunions in suburban Maryland just aren't that exclusive. And I'm a terrible astronaut.

The rest of the evening really didn't get any more exciting. Although I did tell my share of lies, none of them were terribly interesting. I was usually pretending to

• Know about something that I didn't (e.g. flooring installation or NCAA football)
• Be the guy who made fun of people in high school instead of the guy people made fun of

Both of those are pretty big stretches for me, but I was emboldened by the open bar. I had figured that I failed miserably on both fronts, but I did receive text message the next day from a husband of one of Hank's friends, where he mockingly pretended to be one of the personality-free guys we had chatted with the previous evening.

So, maybe I can't pull off the astronaut thing, but I can still find new ways to be a jerk. That's pretty cool.