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I just got back from attending my wife's high school reunion.

While I find going to my own high school reunion is interesting, fun and full of stimulating people with interesting lives - going to someone else's reunion is usually boring. That's because you don't know anybody and you don't have anything in common with these people but your spouse.

But I had a great time at this year's reunion of my wife Madeline's class. That's because I was prepared.

I knew from past experience that within five minutes of arriving at the reunion my wife would disappear for the rest of the night and I'd find myself sitting at a table, chit chatting with complete strangers.

Conversations at these tables usually follow a set pattern like a quiz game. "Who are you with? Where do you live? What do you do? Would you like to see pictures of our grandchildren?"

This time was going to be different. For this reunion, I decided I was going to be a classmate from my wife's class.

So when the reunion invitation arrived from her high school, I went and pulled out Madeline's old yearbook and began thumbing through it with her. She would stop and reminisce over each photo and talk about the people until she got to the picture of Tom Washington.

"I wonder what ever happened to him. He left town after high school and has never come back for a reunion."

Right then, I decided I would be Tom Washington at my wife's class reunion.

I studied everything I could about him in the yearbook and then created an imaginary life for Tom for the past 35 years.

At the reunion, when my wife disappeared, I took my name tag off and put on one that read "Tom Washington" and began mingling with grads I recognized from the yearbook who didn't know me.

I'd walk up to someone from the class, throw my arms open and cry: "Babs Johnson! I bet I haven't seen you since algebra class. You look great."

Three things would happen when I did this.

First, this look would cross their face that said: "Who is this person? I should know him because he knows me." Then their eyes would go to my name tag and a look of recognition would cross their face when they saw the name Tom Washington. Then, they would get a confused expression as they looked back at me.

"Tom Washington. How are you? Didn't you use to be an Albino?" they'd ask.

I had great fun for Tom. He really should have been there. I told different people that I, or rather Tom, had once built a kitchen cabinet for President George W. Bush, helped Bill Gates find his car keys in the Microsoft parking lot and gave NASA shuttle pilots personality tests.

After a while, though, I got tired of that and took a different approach. The next person who asked me what I had been up to, I told them I had spent the last six years in the state sanitarium for the criminally insane. "But I'm much better now,'' I would assure them, then add: "Just as long as no one plays the Macarena while I'm around." Then I would glance over nervously at the band.

After a while, I figured Tom Washington had enough fun for one night, so I took his name tag off and began telling people I was Joseph Ratzinger. "I used to be the Pope, but I got tired of it. Now I'm an extraneous church appendage."

They'd smile and say, "That's nice. Would you like to see pictures of our grandchildren?"

After a while doing that, I went to look for my wife.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "I guess we missed it. Pope Benedict XVI was here earlier although I don't remember him being in our class."

Before too long, people started coming over to our table asking if we'd seen Tom Washington yet.

It seems word had spread that Tom had been in President George Bush's "Cabinet," was "key" to Bill Gates and Microsoft and was a "test" pilot for NASA.

The big payoff of the evening came when one of the men at the table popped in and said, "I don't care if Tom Washington landed on the moon. From what I've heard, if they start playing the Macarena, we're out of here."

- Myron Kukla

Myron Kukla is a Midwest writer based in Holland, Michigan, Tulip capital of the world. He is the author of several books of humor including Guide to Surviving Life: A 3,487-step Guide to Self-Improvement and Confessions of a Baby Boomer available at www.squareup.com/store/myronkuklabooks. Email him at myronkuklabooks.com.