While attending a NYE party I had the experience of almost taking a nose dive down a flight of stairs. While in mid heart attack, gripping on the railing as I caught myself, I had the flashback of a baby shower I had attended a few years ago in the East Bay.
I had been invited to a baby shower along with 12 co-workers I had only known a week. My new job was very conservative and therefore required its employee's to have a large stick inserted up their ass the minute they were hired. I agreed to have the 'stick inserted', but only if I was allowed to promptly remove it at 5pm everyday for a good scrubbing. This was permitted but ONLY for me, and I was hired.
Part of our obligation as office employee's (only the white people for some reason) is to do a lot of sucking up. Sucking up so much that my mouth (between the hours of 9am and 5pm) actually formed into a round circle from the pucker on 12 (afore mentioned) co-workers asses (maneuvering around the stick of course). So, as you can see, I was obligated to go to this horrid event. I just KNEW what was going to happen with this crowd before I showed up...and it did. The minute I mentioned that I lived in San Francisco the whole room fell silent. The look of horror covered most of these women's face's.
One woman exclaimed, "Why would you live there? Its soooo dirty, with her hand to her chest as if she was protecting herself from me". (ya, IM the one with cooties, your husband was at the dive bar last week feeling up a cocktail waitress-she'll do anything for a tip). The next woman agrees and says, " I used to work there but I left that job because the traffic was just awful all the time AND finding parking was so terrible, how do you do it?". (it's called a taxi, dill hole, google it) And finally the third comment I always get (from the hostess "pregger's extraordinaire") says, "oh its so dangerous there,
be careful!"
This is when I have an Ali McBeal moment where I envision she
must think that I run down Mission Street with Scissors, half naked, and smoking a crack pipe on Sundays....I think to myself "be careful?, Be Careful, BE CAREFUL ?!?!? Excuse me 'shake and bake' you just slammed fertility drugs for months until they finally took. NOW you are allowing 3 fetus's - all at the same time - to suck your life force, make you a hormonal monster, eat 3/4 of everything you consume, and give you hemorrhoids for 9 months, while your sex starved husband is under investigation for sexual harassment (it was a misunderstanding, now our receptionist drives a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe) !!!! and you want ME TO BE CAREFUL !!??"
I smile and say through a clenched jaw, " oh don't worry, I am".
I
bit nervous, I will admit
1- I overdressed for the occasion, wearing a dress too low cut, and boots (too heel-y and definitely too leathery)
2-had one glass of white too many (chardonnay of course, the mascot wine of soccer moms who married when they were 18-21 everywhere !)
3-and finally had a dazed plastic smile on my face
way too forced, while pretending to care about baby shower diva's Ann Geddes baby photo's hung in the 'baby room to-be'. My cheeks had cramps in them for weeks after...
I joined a group of three women taking a tour of the house because I was so freakin' uncomfortable I figured if I was walking from room to room out of eye view no one would notice I had poured a third glass of chardonnay. All three women began to descend down the stairs as the tour was coming to an end (1 more hour, 1 more hour, I can do this for 1 more hour). I let the other three women go ahead of me, hoping this would buy me 2 more minutes before I had to go downstairs and meet back up with this group of women who were all sitting in a half circle at the bottom of the stairs waiting for us so the baby shower games could begin.
I take my first step down the carpeted stairs noticing that the stairs are slick from the newly cleaned carpeting and that the stairs were Freakishly short compared to my very large feet. I thought, no problem I'll just put more body weight on my heels to make it down safely. 14 stairs to go....no sooner than I thought this I took my next step and my heel slipped off the edge of the next step.
I don't have to explain to you how much noise it makes when a 160 lb Italian woman eats shit down 14 stairs in a house that was thrown up in 10 days using plywood, superglue, and some Astro-Turf carpet that has just been "cleaned" with a Sham-wow.
I flew down those freakin stairs like an elephant on a superslide. My ass (stick had been ejected on collision with second stair) thumped down each stair like a firecracker. I assumed that using the baby shower guest immediately in front of me as a floation devise would stop my fall, but no, she was no match for me and she ended up a casualty (well more of a Toboggan) and ended up underneath me during my final skid into the half circle of terrified woman.
I was stunned, the room was silent. You know when you are humiliated and the fact that you are so humiliated superseeds any pain you may have been in?? I stood up, carpet rash on my face, skid marks on my knee's (and in my undies too I'm sure), knowing that the entire baby shower had seen my green g-string underwear which CLEARLY did not match what I was wearing (yes these are the things that go through women's minds). There was no laughter, no comforting, no "are you ok?"...just silence... Just one woman who said, "you
really need to be careful".
