I received this email from foreverever this morning:
Are you all up in the work zone? I hope your commute was chill. .. seems like things are getting mellower around the holidays. The bus was still packed and crazy and this woman in a wheel chair at Fairfax and Crenshaw said. .. "Where I'm gonna ride? On top!"
Anyways, I'm looking forward to kicking it with you and Poodle M on Wednesday. I dropped my cell phone in a hot tub this weekend so you'll have to hit me up on my work line. We can work out the details later... .
hope it's all good.
*****
Must have been a great hot tub/key party. Wish I was there.
It is confirmed that Poodle M and I are going to foreverever's company holiday party this Wednesday, and without spilling the beans about his workplace, I just know it's going to be interesting, tasteful, and austere.
My company's holiday party was held this weekend and I did not attend. Something about a workplace where the man to woman ratio is 9 to 1 feels a bit like The Accused when you mix us all up in a dark warehouse and splash a little booze on everyone.
We instead, went to a sampler of The Nutcracker performed by a ballet school of kids between the ages of four and six, with some gangly teens sprinkled in as role models. Our four year old girl, the daughter of our friend, was particularly cute, and did her best, but I heard Poodle M praying quietly to himself during her part, “Trust yourself Etta, trust yourself.”
The stakes were high for the girls, and the urine was even higher for the audience.
Urine.
A woman in her sixties, who seemed to have no relation to child or child bearer, performer, audience member, stage hand, or facilities personnel didn’t quite sully our enjoyment of the experience, but rather, her enthusiasm, and her own special spice added an element of Rabid Nursing Home Fugitive to the event. She was dressed well, in a red top, red cardigan and overall holiday theme, but it was her odor, one of a gas station urinal, filled with falafel, and composted roses that brought more tears to my eyes than the five year olds in tutus, dressed as mice. Her BRAVOs and her exclamations of BEAUTIFUL and BRILLIANT added support to the otherwise dreary soundtrack. She gave Etta’s grandmother helpful parenting advice as well as dirty looks. She reminded Poodle M that he was gay – lest he forget and trot over to the nearest church to get hitched. And the audience looked to her, relied on her for cues on how they should respond to the performance. So when you look at the big picture, I’d say she stole the show. It’s just as well. Kids are exceedingly cute in costumed performances, but every show of this nature needs at least one adult Hindenberg to catch ablaze from a single static spark against a metal folding chair in order to burn bright and fierce amidst all the overly child-focused Jon Benet making parents.
I love the holidays.
And I’m excited about foreverever’s work party. Never been there before, and I hope they have their own handful of volatile dirigibles on staff.
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7 comments:
Some really stunning phrasery in this one. My favorite: it was her odor, one of a gas station urinal, filled with falafel and composted roses that brought more tears to my eyes than the five year olds in tutus, dressed as mice.
Dood. I just had falafel for lunch and i almost had it a second time since I was laughing so hard.
I must insure you that this holiday party over here at the "Pet Shop" is going to be amazing. I can just feel the holiday spirit building up around here.
A new thing I hate is all the Christmas music. I don't necessarily hate hearing the music, what I hate is if I hear the Salvation Army playing "Rudolph the red nose reindeer" I'll start singing the words in my head.
What brainwashing has happening to me in 30 years. AAAAaaauuuuggghhhh! It's inescapable. I'm hoping that this holiday party will be so full of merry this drink and eat that and all forms of holiday cheer that it will automatically cancel itself out.
Like the urine infused Christmas tree grandmother. Something so hideous can be made beautiful this time of year and inspire us all.
Dearest Tara,
Thank you. There were limited seats and I sat closest to her at first, having moved from the very back to be closer to Etta's grandma. I was able to shift my seat as far away as I could, leaving the boyfriend to fend for himself. In my short tenure as the Man Who Was Touched by the Smell, those are the notes I detected in her odor.
one of my other favorites from posts past is "tall as a nightstand and mad as hell." Or something like that. Did you know Josh Chaffin is living in Thailand?? He just found me on the face book!
Sitting next to Smelly Pants Xmas Tree Lady was probably the worst part of my holiday season thus far.
She kept leaning over to me and asking, "Who are you?" with this horrendous scowl on her face. "I'm a friend," I replied not breathing through my nose, only through my mouth. I felt like I was going to faint. "Of who?" she spat back.
What the fuck? I suddenly felt like a detainee at Guantanamo. My answers wouldn't suffice and she kept staring at me with crossed eyes and puffed out lips.
I managed to move over a couple of seats next to Employee 835 and in between her shouts of "BRAVO" and "THAT'S PRETTY" I checked every pocket I had hoping to find a clothes pin for my nose...or a gun.
who dropped his phone in the tub?
karthik?
Foreverever, a contributor to this blog is the one who dropped his phone in the hot tub. And because we can't call him on his cell phone tomorrow prior to entering his work party, one of us has been assigned a false identity so that we can get in.
Karthik?
Gesundheit. And drink plenty of fluids.
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