If there’s any night for USC to lose, it needs to be a night that I’m doing something else and not watching the game. It also needs to be a night that Notre Dame wins. And so it was Saturday night, as I left the house for a black tie gala celebrating 75 years of existence for a high school, and walked away unsure what was going to happen to my two teams. Losses like the 1 point loss sustained by USC can send me into tailspin for a week. But not if I’m not watching them. And not when Notre Dame snaps an 0-5 record against UCLA.
This gala is a $75/person affair with dinner, full free bar and dancing. Held at a beautiful mansion that also houses the high school, it was the perfect setting. Even more so considering an anonymous sponsor paid for all athletic coaches to attend, making the tickets for Hessica and myself gratis.
Upon getting there, they’ve enclosed an entire portion of the back courtyard for the dining area with 35 tables surrounding the pond/fountain. Fashionably late describes us after we get back from a 10 hour day at a Pacific Grove cross country meet and then I proceed to take 25 minutes trying to remember how a bow tie gets tied. Eventually, remembering some moves of my Dad’s and with some straightening help from Hessica, it gets done.
It’s all old folks, faculty, alumni and even some star power (Tom Lantos) at the gig, and I get to show a more cleaned up tuxedoed version of myself to the staff that only gets to see me in running gear after 5 to 10 miles. Hessica is of course stunning in a strapless black affair, sunglasses and scarf that have her looking more Jackie Kennedy than Sen. Fe’s assistant.
Word comes in by text on the USC loss, but I’m 4 drinks deep and celebrating the other text with word of Notre Dame’s first win of the season over those hated Bruins, so it kinda rolls off my back. Besides, I have my hands full doing my best to keep one of the track runner’s mom from molesting me in public. An alumni herself, she had attempted to touch me a few weeks before by putting a name tag from her daughter’s retreat on my chest. I hadn’t really thought of it like that until Coach had pointed it out. Here, in the comforts of a black tie gala and with a few knocked back herself, she came at me full speed. By the end of the evening, I had to stand a few feet away while talking to her as I had had my ass pinched quite enough for my liking.
After dinner, Coach, EdeJ, Hessica and myself open up the ante on dancing. The band was going, but the floor was bare…the four of us cut to a few songs and then welcomed the rest of the party out to join us. Hessica provides great bait and simultaneous protection for some of the younger alumni that had made me feel like a meat market earlier in the evening. I’m talking to the saucy mom when five of these ’99 grads walk by and proceed to give me the toe to head inspection. They get past and the mom with a hint of jealousy tells me, “someone’s being checked out.” No place like a gala event for an all girls catholic high school for a guy to feel properly objectified.
I want to break the bartender in half when I ask for a rum and coke and he tells me I’m a frat boy. “This is a 75th anniversary gala, have some champagne or something.” Last I checked, it wasn’t the guy hired to make the drinks that was paid for critiquing drink choices and deriding the guests. And last time I was in the bathroom, it looked in the mirror like I was the guest in the tux and you were the one behind the bar mixing drinks. That’s not to say that I don’t value you as a bartender at the event or as a person when you go home and are no longer working an event, but I know that if I was getting paid to make you drinks, and a rum and coke was what you wanted your tasty beverage to be, I wouldn’t be talking shit about you for ordering it. I’d be working on making you the rum and coke to end all rum and cokes.
This is kinda like a time a few months ago when a City Tavern bartender got on my case for ordering a long island iced tea. I’m sorry, but if you’re behind the bar, suggestions and fun new drinks are within your range of conversation. Critiques and hard times meted out to drinkers whose choice you don’t agree with are not. If you don’t want to be an equal opportunity drink server, don’t become a bartender! Millions of bartenders the world over take your order and serve what you asked for with a smile. I think it’s called a service industry.
Enough on that rant. When I left the house, Roomie told me she’d be around if we needed to be picked up from the event. I knew that with Coach driving it was doubtful that we would, but at least she’d be around. Because of this, I leave my keys at the apartment. Upon getting back, I buzz myself into the front door, get upstairs and find that the door’s locked. I’ve noticed that having spent time in Philadelphia, my roommate is a little overly careful with locking the door. I’ve noticed that she will even lock it while she’s home, which makes me wonder just what sort of neighborhood she’s accustomed to living in. We live in a building comprised mainly of people well into their golden years that keep every exterior door locked and closed. Heck, you need a key to get the elevator to come down to the garage, so I routinely feel safe leaving it unlocked.
Well, it’s locked and there are lights on inside, so my immediate thought is that she’s passed out on the couch, because why would she have left and locked the door knowing I would be home later after telling me she could give us a lift if necessary?
This is where I begin 30 minutes of pounding on the door, ringing the doorbell and calling her cell phone in an attempt to wake her up. But the cell keeps ringing through to voicemail (on silent next to her on the couch perhaps?), and she’s not answering, which is overly odd to me considering how loud our doorbell is.
I then call my building manager, who is of course asleep, and doesn’t have keys to the unit. I then start 15 minutes more of the above before getting a hold of Charles who informs me, “oh yea, she’s right here with me in the city.” The blood pressure upon hearing this almost blows the top of my head off. Especially when it looks like she’ll be sleeping there. At least at this point I know I can stop pounding on doors and windows.
After a few phone calls routed and rerouted, I actually somehow manage to get the fire department to come out to the apartment. Using a set of keys that unlocks a box by the front door that contains keys to the building, they find a key that gets them onto the roof. Picture me, 12:30am, drunk, on the roof of my building in my tuxedo/evening wear with three firefighters. They bring up a ladder, put it down onto my bedroom balcony, and go in, letting Hessica in through the front door. Now that’s what I call service with a smile.
So all’s well that ends well, even if it didn’t start well, right? That’s how I felt when I went to bed thinking of a gala that had wiped away the pain of USC losing and allowed me to bask in the glow of Notre Dame’s win and UCLA’s misery. Up next? You know it’s pumpkin time.
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