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Rebuttal of Baby's Day Out
I just returned from an out of
town business trip (without Shawn) to find her re-cap of events last Thursday in
my inbox. I must say, Shawn's version of the facts outlined below portrays her
in a favorable light, compared to the darkness of reality.
Everything at the law firm's open house was going fine until the first mobile
food tray was offered up to the group standing around talking about hiking and
fishing. Fear seized me as Shawn reached for what was clearly a disaster snack.
Everyone else in the circle clearly recognized the risk of eating these crumb
bombs and politely refused. There is just no graceful way to swat food out of
your spouse's hand in front of others. She was famished and immediately chomped
on the cracker topped with tomato and cheese. A land slide of cracker pieces
cascaded down her spill proof outfit onto the floor, just as our attorney, Ron,
was looking our way and asking a question. He is a master at thinking on his
feet and the horror on his face was evident for only an instant and his
introduction of us to others in a dark out-of-the-way corner was seamless. It
was just like the scene in Animal House when Flounder and Tom Hulse are going
through rush in the "cool" fraternity and they are continually ushered into a
back room with other dorks and geeks, away from the real fun.
We escaped the dork zone after some time and made our way to the large food
table in the conference room. I warned Shawn to select only "low-risk" foods,
which she agreed to do. The smoked fish looked fine, shrimp - no worries, and
what could go wrong with a little stuffed olive? We struck up a nice
conversation with another law partner, Natalie, who has also done some fine work
for us in the past. Things were going great as Natalie was giving us the
scouting report on the U of Montana, a potential college for our son who would
like to major in skiing for his freshmen year. Unfortunately, Shawn's
plate did not come with an automatic leveling device and the olive rolled off
the plate onto the floor. Timing is everything and this occurred when Shawn's
mouth was somewhat full of the wonderful smoked salmon. As I leaned down to pick
up the olive on the floor, Shawn had an attack of laughing hysteria and coughed
chunks of fish onto Natalie's nice blue suit and onto the carpet. To her credit,
Natalie also can think seamlessly on her feet and she instantly put Shawn at
ease by assuring us that the carpet would be shampooed after the party and her
suit was due to go to the cleaners anyway. She offered us some souvenir door
prizes and offered to validate our parking and even escorted us to the elevator
and pushed the down button. What courtesy!
I will be attending all future business functions solo.
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