Reply #154: I know what you're saying about class rings.

[lumberjack_jeff]

I really wanted one at the time, and wished I could have afforded it.

Do I lament the fact that it doesn't reside in the bottom of the wife's jewelery box now? Not really.

I'm sympathetic with the idea that people (as you put it very well) want a place at the table for just that one night. I'm not sympathetic with the idea that it should be so arbitrarily expensive - one should not feel compelled to "really belong" by spending as much money as can be tolerated by the most wealthy parent at the school.

The parents at my eldest's school are organizing a "senior trip". To finance this $25,000 trip to Seattle, they are shaking down every business in town. The meetings are, to my sensibilities, nausea-inducing, particularly the expectation that "the kids" should bear no responsibility for anything but to get on the bus.

It's all about facilitated arrested development.