‘Chloe’, Young and Jackson’s famously elongated dining room nude is a Rorschach test for people who say they know a lot about art because if you know a lot about art you will never have heard of ‘Chloe’. My artist school buddy JT says the 1875 painting is poorly executed though in a post-modern way. Which may be good – if you know what I mean.

Y and J’s has seen better days and is an interesting choice for our school reunion. The furniture fading like a recently retired accountant, the floating post-match anxiety of loser AFL supporters like a cigarette smoker’s lung. ‘What about that nice beige hotel in Malvern with the Basil Fawlty owner?’ someone asks.

Yes, but it doesn’t have ‘Chloe’.

I’m here for the reunion not the art. And the first rule of School Reunion is don’t talk about school reunion. Somebody might work out how old you are and grab you by the franking credits.

The second rule is don’t abuse the balding old bastard at the bar. He used to be in your soft option Legal Studies class and needs money because he never got the marks for law.

The third rule… as any karening Gen Z  trying to deplatform their own genitalia will – without irony – tell you: boomers sure have a lot of rules.

There’s a lot of political talk about intergenerational fairness – like over-sixties are one big tribe – but like any political party we also have our self-loathing, internal enemies. Ageing is just a civil war but with leaf blowers and garden hoses over the back of a curated fence. Our reunion may be one school year but as our favourite early-Eighties hairdresser sex band Frankie Goes to Hollywood sang, we are two tribes gone to war.

The Haves are on Table 1 and the Nots on Table 2. Which really means Table 1 are the grifters and chancers, the sales-pitchers.  The Stupids who buy from them at exorbitant rates are on the other table. Someone whispers: ‘the negative gearing fix will change all that’ like they’re announcing the revolution and the gavel-swinging auctioneers are being pushed onto the back of trucks.

It’s Marxist redistribution of wealth writ large but only if a new-build South Yarra townhouse with subsidised solar panels is the opiate of the masses. Our Year 12 communist who should know better given where he now lives is banging on about needing to embrace the Scandinavian model. We think he means Scandinavian models and start flipping through our secret Instagram bookmarks to find them but all we come up with is Mona Tougaard who is hot but doesn’t look Scandinavian. Then, a young, Helena Christensen pops up and I’m much more comfortable with my generational bigotry.

Remember Helena and that George Michael ‘Freedom’ clip – another sacred relic of our past? We all dreamily say, ahhh yes, the one where Michael uses supermodels to explain his personal search for world peace. ‘Freedom’ alumna, Linda Evangelista said she never gets out of bed for less than $10,000 per day and back then we all hated her for that because we didn’t know what $10,000 was. With bracket creep that’s now, like, $3.50.

Everyone’s talking intergenerational fairness, but Rule 7 of Reunion says don’t talk about the war. I’m not really up on this intergenerational thing and it’s hard to pronounce when you’re swallowing an hors d’oeuvre. But I love my kids and want Generation I-Want-It-Now to prosper even if their culture rips off my culture while they despise it for not being carbon-free.

I’d like someone to explain this intergenerational deal to me like I’m three. Which is why cub Senator Ellie Whiteaker uses a toddler drawl and small plush toy giraffes. A more arthritic senator hip-hops the language of a youth aligning factions at Young Labor discos by telling us it’s about the tech bros like the CGT changes are a poorly executed reverse baseball cap manoeuvre by Raygun.

Sure, there are benefits as you get older but that’s because you’re (spoiler alert) getting old and really there’s no escape from death – Scandinavian model or not. Then again the joyous Scandinavians are always willing to assist with a government-funded early exit if you just sign here. The Köttbullar and salted cod are complimentary as are the hypodermic-wielding relatives.

Labor governments talk a big aphorism game about understanding love. And they can tweet out a meme at the drop of a hat – ‘Love is love’ and all that rigmarole, but really it’s a tin ear when they’re trying to align the twirling cogs of politics with human emotion and family. The personal is not always political and the political is not always best even if Katy Gallagher says the earlier we offload babies into government-run childcare the better. Next, they’ll start building early learning centres for foetuses to improve national productivity.

This government channels and contradicts Jungian boomer Sting who says he won’t be leaving his massive wealth to his children because it’s a form of abuse. They endorse this intergenerational stinginess by ensuring there’s no wealth to leave to the next generation anyway. Like Sting’s favourite topic, Tantric sex, you get a lifetime fondling other people’s money without ever actually getting the happy ending.

The real question once you’re over sixty is what makes you happy and have you found it? Everyone here has an opinion. ‘Are you retired yet’ is a clue that Tables 1 and 2 keep asking each other. Table 2 opera-trained David thinks happy is turning a portable small, speaker he had hidden in his jacket up loud and bellowing Mozart to the horror of those on Table 1. Him horrifying them is what makes me happy.

Meanwhile someone at the Table 1 private yacht club  is talking about walking the El Camino spiritual 800-kilometre pilgrimage in an attempt to save his soul. I remember when climbing Mount Everest was how you saved your soul with sherpas dragging American millionaires to the summit like a slab of dollar bills. But then hot air ballooning took over and the depressing sight of just-turned-100 grandmothers celebrating at 10,000 feet while tethered to handsome parachute instructors spoilt it for everyone.