Alumni Notes

I was reading through my college alumni magazine the other day. It is eminently skimmable, hardly unique in a genre which features pretentious articles about new research and building projects, all calculated to inspire loyalty and open wallets. One small section features notes from specific graduating classes. Here’s a fact about class notes: very few things in life strike such a perfect balance between fascinating and repellent.
If any of you are wondering what my classmates are up to, I can tell you this: they are up to bragging, big time. Sometimes their bragging is overt and shameless, and sometimes it is coyly framed in humor or phony self-deprecation, but anyway you look at it, it makes me pray to God that they might soon suffer a public and exquisitely humiliating downfall.
Recently, I’ve noticed a shift from boasting about personal accomplishments to gloating about offspring. I know the future promises they’ll be crowing about grandkids, followed by a short foray into self-pity when they are old and infirm. Then, I’ll get to read about them in the class necrology. I can hardly wait.