All Class

I went to a kind of fancy luncheon today to honor some amazing people who either give literally millions of dollars to truly worthy causes or else find ways to get other people to do it. Since I was there for work, I had to put on a nice dress and do my hair special and wear hose—pantyhose, you guys—and act like I know what I’m doing because I was around a lot of seriously important work people.

This was after I had to color my dress because I apparently spontaneously lactated bleach. Coupla little bleach spots on my still-paying-for-itself black wrap dress, smack on the right nipple. I don’t know how it happened because I don’t buy bleach for laundry and I don’t clean in my expensive black wrap dress. Sharpied that shit. Totally worked. I win.

Fortunately, I got to continue that classiness when I arrived at the luncheon. It was one thing when I had to pretend to be fine standing in a circle of deans and VPs and the president and the provost. Some of those folks are actually on my client list. I’m sure they were wondering why I was there, the answer to which is that our fundraiser folks are also on my client list. And the whole reason all of us were there is that some of the people being recognized were people whose efforts had, in one way or another, benefited our institution. So let’s eat!

Lunch was a lovely cold salmon filet with what a colleague kept calling “frizzy salad.” Also known as frisee salad. And in his defense, that stuff is hard to eat with any degree of grace. I know because of the number of times some of it wound up hanging out of my mouth when I tried to take a modest forkful. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I cut it up. I think frisee lettuce regenerates.

Also I kept slamming my knee into the table leg and disrupting everyone’s place settings. And I spilled my iced tea, which I don’t even drink. But that’s kind of okay because another colleague knocked over the whole little baby pitcher of coffee creamer.

You can’t take us anywhere.

I had to look around to see if it was acceptable for me to put my dessert plate on top of my lunch plate when I was ready to inhale my individually sized chocolate mousse cake with strawberry gelee. Somebody else did it, so that made it okay. I briefly entertained the notion of grabbing one of the cakes that was at an unoccupied seat at the table, but I managed to control myself at least that much.

I always feel like such an ass at these kinds of things. I’m supposed to appear sophisticated and worldly but most of the time I’m like, “Can anybody tell I Sharpied my boob?” and “Do I have frisee in my teeth?” It’s like I’m 12. Here I am all gussied up and working professionally for nearly two decades and whatnot, and I can’t seem to figure out how to not be an unimpressive jackass.

I managed to conduct myself with some degree of aplomb while I handled a few interviews after the event, though I did drop my phone/recording device twice. Also, do you ever have the problem where you’re at a thing and people are offering a hand to shake and you’re holding your sunglasses, phone, event program, pen and umbrella all in your right hand? And then you have to switch everything to your left hand just to be able to reciprocate the proper greeting? Why don’t I just learn to hold everything in my left hand? Why am I an unimpressive jackass?

Also? The people at this function are amazing. Ah. May. Zing. I welled up four times, and the only reason it wasn’t five is because I draw a line at crying about 17-year-old Girl Scouts because get on with your life, sweetheart. But with all the giving and all the selflessness (and I guess there’s an argument to be made that if you’re a gazillionaire you’re probably not entirely selfless but you’re still giving it away to refugee camps in Burma and the like), I felt super-inspired and super-uplifted and super-jerky. Again, obviously I’m not a gazillionare, but still. What do I do for the refugees in Burma? Nothing.

Also my underwear was on inside-out.

Again.