If you walked into my home today, you might think it looks like one of those houses of the future we saw in film strips and movies in junior high.
There is no phone on the wall. No answering machine. My chairs look like pieces of sheet metal formed into the letter S. The lights are voice controlled, but only respond to commands in Swedish.
Instead of beds, I have installed pod shaped sleeping stations that look like tanning machines. And I own no alarm clocks.
You heard me right. No alarm clocks. Like my daughters who won’t let their “devices” out of their sight, I now use my cellular phone for all my communication, e-mail, entertainment, weather, news, sports, Twitter, Facebook and my clock.
Actually, using my phone as an alarm has taken some getting used to. The tones are loud and aggressive. I have yet to find the comforting beeps that have gently tugged me out of slumber since I was 8 or 9 years old.
So it was a bit of a shock when after the EP High School Graduation ceremony and with only 45 minutes of sleep a strange, blaring, honking sound blasted out of my Blackberry. I had unwisely placed it right next to my face to ensure I would hear it.
It was one in the morning. I was jolted off the couch like I had been poked by a cattle prod. As I peeled myself off the ceiling, it struck me that although it had already been a long day my work was just beginning. It was luggage duty time at the all-night senior party at EP High.
As I showered I was praying the 11th-grade parents were able to handle the onslaught of backpacks and bags as the seniors entered the activity center post ceremony. If they failed in their mission, my job and that of those volunteering with me would be nearly impossible. It would be chaos. Mayhem. End of the world type stuff.
I walked into the high school and signed in with two very sleepy parents. It reminded me of what it must have been like when the new recruits finally made it to Europe during World War II. The soldiers that had been on duty were ready for a reprieve.
The arrival of freshly showered parents who appeared to be awake, alert and ready to help with the final stage of the party buoyed the spirits of those parents who had already served. They smiled weakly at me when I said I was on the third shift, then promptly put their heads back down on the table.
I moved into the luggage area and sized up the situation. Those on the first shift had succeeded in checking in the five or six hundred bags of shoes, purses, prizes and other personal belongings of our recently graduated seniors. The bags had the student’s names, wristband numbers and were placed generally in order in the activity center.
The picture perfect organization of the luggage area was in stark contrast to the breakdown in rules and normal societal behavior that was being exhibited in the inflatable game area supervised by my friend Chuck.
Depressed that no graduates were taking part in his basketball fun zone, Chuck started shooting hoops from dangerous distances to entice players. The grads loved it. It didn’t take long before basketballs were bouncing willy nilly all over the gym, causing a general end of any discipline and increasing the opportunity for participant injury from being hit by a rogue hook shot.
Prior to the authorities being called, adults moved in and everyone came to their senses. Although he was congratulated for adding some much needed energy at a low time in the event, Chuck was removed from the game area and sent to the parent’s lounge for punishment.
As the kids participated in the final event of the evening, the big hypnotist show, we needed to move all of the graduate’s bags to the North entrance of the school, re-order them and prepare with our largest team of the evening to handle the mass of students rushing out the door at the close of the show.
But our fears of onslaught were completely unfounded. As tired as we were, and we were dragging to be sure, at five a.m. our bright eyed graduates came out of the show looking like they had just completed an ultra marathon. In the desert. With no food or water. After swimming the English Channel.
We handed these sleepy seniors their bags filled with prizes, photos, and other mementos and watched them walk out that high school door, into the parking lot under a beautiful, awe inspiring, red sky sunrise.
I smiled as I watched and wondered if any of them realized that they were leaving this wonderful place, Eden Prairie High School … for the last time.
(This is the part where you can get a little weepy.)

Eden Prairie resident Steven Stromberg’s humor column appears twice monthly.