I'm going to be covering the big radiology conference that's here in Chicago in December, and I just got a survey from the organizing group addressed to "Dr. Jersild." I don't know if there are any medical doctors in the family -- there are a bunch of Ph.D.'s and lawyers and such, but I don't think they tend to go by "Doctor" -- so I have no idea if there's an actual Dr. Jersild somewhere whose ears are burning. But as I'm the least educated member of my family, it made me laugh. The other thing that made me laugh was that it was a survey on what hotel I'd be staying at. You'd think they'd chuck the Chicago people out of that particular mailing.

I also got a message from my friend Jeremy from high school -- apparently folks are already planning the 15-year reunion, and they wondered if he wanted to help plan. He said he would, if they'd give him complete creative control. This is his list:

• The entire affair should be bilingual, in Arabic and Dutch (if you don't like it, go back to Haarlem, why don't ya!). That includes all invitations and directions.
  
  
• We will give out a party favor which will be those big foam pointy hands. You know, like the ones you get at football games. The big pointy hands will be bright orange have the words "Tower Hill rules!" printed on them (in Dutch and Arabic, of course). Tower Hill is the big rival school, and also where my brother-in-law teaches.
  
  
• Everyone who attends has to place their pagers, cell phones, personal digital assistants, or any electronic device they are carrying into a big barrel when they arrive. When the guest is ready leave, we will fill the barrel up with water and each guest will have to bob for their pager, phone, etc. Whatever device you bob, that's the one you go home with. I actually like this idea.
  
  
• The location for the reunion will have a big blank wall and some spray paint. Each member of the class of '88 can spray paint whatever they want on the wall. Won't it be really cool to see what our classmates can come up with? There was a rather horrific incident involving racist graffiti, which led to four guys in our class getting expelled. Which he addresses next....
  
  
• At the end of every hour we will vote on who should be expelled from the class. That person will be removed from the class list for all time and will never be invited to any alumni events again. The last one standing gets $1 million. (Beth and Julie, you can be responsible for paying the money. See? Even with total creative control, I can delegate) By the way, I volunteer to be expelled, if it means I'm off the mailing list. And did the expelled guys not get invited to the 10-year reunion?
  
  
• The evening's activity will be to try to figure out what letter day it is (i.e. whether it is "a" day, 'b" day, "c" day, "d" day, "e" day, or "m" day) using the last letter day from our graduation year and calculating forward 15 years. We had a very weird schedule. One of my recurring anxiety dreams is that I have to go back to high school, and I can never figure out when my classes are, so I end up not going to any of them until the day of the final exams.
  Oh, and why "m" day? I went to a Quaker school, so that stood for Meeting for Worship day. Every Wednesday. Come to think of it, that was the only day that made sense.
  
  
• We will hold the reunion in Sarah Jersild's house in Chicago, Illinois. Hah. Very funny. I didn't attend to 10-year reunion. Jeremy tried to get a Sarah Impersonator to go.

Despite this list, apparently they still want him to help out.

Oh, and I'm afraid I'm going to be in.... Madagascar that weekend. Doing a lemur survey. Yeah.