Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Christmas Party Hell



So, why has Cookie not been posting to the blog so much, you may well be asking yourself.

Well, if you have been following said blog, you would know that Cookie is in sales at the Beef House Strip Club, and Christmas is an busy, bust time of year.  My days are spent consulting with clients, and answering their questions:

Customer: Have you used this dildo?

Cookie: Madam, we carry over 100,000 different dildos, and it would be impossible for me to try them all.  But purple sparkly is a flattering color on you!

and

Customer: Well it looks like your co-workers aren't very keen on helping you out...

Cookie: Madam, that could be because they are helping other patrons with their ball gags.  Now, what kind of brisket would you like to find today?

Customer: Well someone needs to tell your zone manager that they aren't very good at scheduling enough employees.

Cookie:  Would you like me to ring them for you?

Customer: I don't want to get into the middle of this, you call and tell them.

Cookie: Hello, Manager, This is Mr. Cookie in the Beef House.  We have a Mrs. Rosenbloom would like to complain about your staffing of the Pavilion.  "Mrs. Rosenbloom, Manager will be here shortly..."

Enough about my drab existence. You want more? OK.  Last Friday I went to the most unfriendly Christmas Party ever.  Husband is a member of LGBT network at International Amalgamated.  He joined because he thought it would be a boffo way to meet people, and we have met people.  Strange, odd people.

Anyhow, Christmas was at the home of two men who live the "Loft Condo" lifestyle.  You know, RAW brick, RAW steel trusses and beams and ENORMOUS windows for all to see into the Condo while they do outrageous things, with great sophistication.

We were greeted at the door and TOLD to put our coats in the closet, then TOLD to get a drink.  Once we had said drink, made with well spirits, we were TOLD to go up stairs to the living level.  Up in the living level, we were TOLD that they would give us a tour of their "space".  We walked around this enormous room and were told that the air ducts "delineate our purpose spaces."

"Purpose spaces?" asks the husband.

"Well we can't very well call them rooms, can we.  Will you excuse me while I go greet Monica?  You can find your own way back to the Conversation Area.  MONICA!...."

Monica, a woman of color and her bald girlfriend walked in.  Bald girlfriend, Clothilde, shaves her head to shatter the male dominated paradigm for women's fashion.  Monica told us this.  Baldy, who we have tried to chat with before is rather rude.  She looks, and she doesn't engage, but does engage with other "womyn'.  In her path to shattering sex, race and gender paradigm, EVIDENTLY Baldy doesn't include men in that mission.  Fine by me.

Anyhow, I had worked a ten hour shift on my feet earlier in the day, my legs were killing me and I was exhausted, but I put on that support husband smile and chit chatted for about two hours, when my body - which was still 50 days out from surgery - started to get wonky.  I needed to sit and sit fast before my legs went out from underneath me.  Even the husband noted that after drinking three plain old ginger ales (from cans we brought) and dining at the buffet while standing up, that the color had drained from my face.  He looked into the "casual dining purpose space" and saw that a chair had freed up and sent me to it.

No sooner than I had sat down then ol' Baldy said her first words to me: "You aren't going to sit down there.  There is a pregnant woman standing over there," and she nodded at a youngish twenty something with a trim figure. I must have had the "Huh?" look on my face and ol' Baldy reasserted herself by calling to the pregnant woman "Renee, git yourself over her, this man needs to get up and out so you can git off your feet and sit in this chair."

I looked up at the husband who looked at Baldy, who looked at him and said "Find him some other place to sit."  Both offended, we walked towards the kitchen area where there was a food bar and stools when the host came over and TOLD us to move towards the "Social Purpose Space" (reader I am not making this up) because "I spent all this money on this loft and people need to learn to use the spaces."

So the husband and I got up, and moved towards the coat closet, got our coats and left.   The man who runs the group saw this ten minute Kabuki Theatre presentation and looked as horrified as we felt. "Fred's just nervous about hosting, and Clothilde is a lovely person when you get to know her. Please stay.  We thanked him, but I pointed that I really did feel wonkie, and had to work the next day.  "Maybe another time," and we left.

Now, all this said, and ol' Baldy, and the creepy host aside, this group is important to the husband at International Amalgamated because it gets him social access to decision makers.  And the man who runs the group is very nice, and 90% of the people are exceptionally nice as well.   But even the husband was really put out by these people.

On the way home, husband said "Did all that really happen?"  Yes, it did.

Between the host who treated us like circus dogs by ordering us about, and ol' Baldy, I am just fine as long as we can get away from these people.

Just fine indeed.


25 comments:

  1. I'm sure you realize by now that these things happen to you on purpose--so you can write about them to entertain your devoted readers.

    Happy Holidays anyway to both of you.
    --Jim

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  2. First off, true story and it made me laugh out loud!
    Social Purpose Space. I.Would.Die.
    As for Baldy, I would'a been slipping off my wedges and pulling out my hoops if that beeyatch came near me.

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  3. Purpose space? Or porpoise space? What is this, sea world?!
    wtf?

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  4. OMIGOSH....how horrible. I would not have given Curly the satisfaction of moving me out. You had a legitimate reason to need to sit - your recuperation from surgery. Ofcourse, I would have already decided that I was leaving this soiree shortly and that I didn't care what the wanna be snooty architects thought. Sadly, the same thing that held you back would have also held me back; doing it for the good of the spouse. But, that would have only lasted so long. I would have lasted about one drink.

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    Replies
    1. Alas, I was raised a gentleman, and I was raised smartly. So the next time I see this gorgon, I have ever right intention on playing a card on her at the next social gathering, hopefully it include killing her with kindness, metaphorically speaking, of course.

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  5. Oh gosh, I so don't miss entertaining/being entertained be it Christmas or any time of year. I['m sorry the two of you had to put up with that Cookie.

    I suspect baldy shaves her head to prevent voodoo dolls being made with stolen locks.

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  6. Sad to learn that the hosts run out of money for the plasterers. These "spaces" are usually comfortable like a station hall, and so are the inhabitants.
    Baldy would in German be called rotzfrech.

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    Replies
    1. I could call her Mein Rotzfrech, and tell her it means something like My Dear One. And she could learn it and start calling others that, and hopefully one day, she'd make the wrong call. Right?

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    2. Try it. Could end in a black eye for her.
      Let's say - if someone would call me "rotzfrech" for no reason (I did not spit in the person's face or drink e.g.) I would be pretty embarrassed - and perhaps then spit in the person's drink, depending on my level of intoxication. I would in any case demand an excuse, in pretty strong (German) words.

      My favourite is "Stößchen" - a good friend went from Southern Germany to Hamburg. He was the butt of jokes by some people there for his dialect that sometimes could be heared and generally for coming from the uncool, provincial arse-end of Germany.
      He told some pretty rude and dumb people that it would be absolutely cool in Southern Germany to cling glasses and say "Stößchen", not that boring "Zum Wohl" or such.
      Worked. At least on one dumb person, a lady who gave me this treatment while I visited.

      "Stößchen" btw is so non-class, subterranean, it's not even funny. Would lead to strange looks or an abrupt turn around, social isolation. Can be understood as "come on and have a little fuck with me".

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  7. So sorry you and your mister had to put up with such foolishness, Sugar Cookie. All us girls think the evil bald one needs to back the hell off and shut her ass up.

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  8. Good grief! Sorry to hear about the egregious lack of manners at the party. And the very odd lack of chairs vs. guests. And the rude bald woman who likely embarrassed the pregnant woman as much as she did the rest of you. But I love your description of their loft space and their uses thereof. Perhaps one day you can quit the Beef House and write novels?

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    1. And this is what I don't get about in Baltimore. In Ohio, no one would order you out of the kitchen, you would be asked given that there active cooking was going on, and even then it would be a temporary thing. One day, when we get our half bath, we will show the folks what hospitality is.

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    2. In Illinois, someone would hand you a whisk and send you to the stove. And you'd have the best time tasting things before you helped bring them out to the table...

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    3. And trust me, I will chase that fat assed creep out of my kitchen faster than you can say pate.

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  9. I think there's a delicate balance between "social access to decision makers" and throwing a tray of vol-au-vents across the "casual dining purpose space" aiming squarely at Clothilde's bald head. Which is no doubt why I never go to such events as these. Jx

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    Replies
    1. But if I never went, how would I know about such things as "Purpose Spaces"? One must find the silver lining in every cloud.

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  10. I would have spent my time in the smoking and the drinking space. What the Hell kinda space have you moved too? I say relax and give in to the obvious elevation in sophistication space you're being exposed to space.

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    1. I said to Husband, perhaps we are standing standing in the ostracized guest purpose space.

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  11. "Social Purpose Space?"

    Toss them into MY social purpose space, otherwise known as The Oubliette.

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    Replies
    1. Wonderful memories of Stephen Fry saying: "Come, darling. Step into my oubliette." Thx MJ!

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    2. Only if we could make it seem like an accident.

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  12. Gadzooks! It never ceases to amaze me how so few people can a frightful party make. I think I'd rather be at work!

    Better luck at the next one, Cookie!

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  13. How you suffer to entertain us all, dear! And thank god that's a party that's behind you.

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    Replies
    1. There is always next years party to look forward to.

      You know, when International Amalgamated had us in Ohio, the office Christmas parties were the event of the season. It was a small office, only 20 employees, but everyone was really wonderful to one and other. And we had so much fun we actually had the Big potentates from Corporate show up, and keep coming back. The only ay this past Christmas would have been fun would have been if there was a dead body in a casket and it was a wake.

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