Another Weekend in the Trenches: Part I, A Sweaty, Formal Friday

Sometimes my job requires me to work odd hours, which can include evening and weekends. I don't mind most of the time, because I get time off later, I have no life, and most of the time it's for interesting stuff.

So I found myself heading into last weekend with assignments as follows: Friday, 5/15, 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. Not the most productive hours, since all time in between is rendered useless.

But because I take many of my life lessons from 80's band Scandal, I am the warrior. So I sucked it up. And what ensued I hope is funny shit for you, because it sure was for me.

Friday night, 5:30 p.m. I am sitting in my office, waiting to head to a certain National Cemetery in a few minutes for some fancy reception. Now, since I came to work at 6:30 a.m. in the morning, I didn't get up early to shower, so my hair was a disaster (not to sound like a chick, but if you know me in real life, you'll get the clue), and I had a dirty pair of jeans on.

I was able to go home at noon and shower and change into a clean shirt, so I'm looking pretty sharp at 5:30.

I head over to the cemetery, park my car a few hundred yards from the building, which doesn't seem to me much of a big deal. I pop in a stick of gum to make my breath extra fresh, and I head over to the building.

Here's what I didn't count on. The late afternoon is a crisp 85 humid degrees, and I am in a heavy collared shirt and pants. The walk to the building is up several steep sets of stairs.

Can you see where this is going?

I start to sweat. I'm not a big sweater, I think my lack of excessive body hair helps me in that regard. I don't even buy anti-perspirant for my under-arms, just plain deodorant. But when it's humid out, the aforementioned mop of hair I have acts like a fucking ski cap.

So I start to sweat a bit, which presents two problems.

1) White people (myself included) do not look good when they sweat, unless their hair is very short. Watch any NBA game. The white guys look like losers when they sweat.

Black people get all shiny and smooth, and their hair carries the sweat well. White people, the bottom layer of hair gets all wet, so it starts sneaking underneath your hairline, and greasy tendrils of hair get plastered all over your forehead and neck. It's disgusting.

Us whiteys might have gotten the swimming ability and the grammar advantage, but I would trade those things to be able to sink 20-footers at a 60 percent clip and look good doing it.

and;

2) The B.O. conundrum. I am absolutely paranoid that I smell at all times. I don't think I do, but no one thinks that they smell.

I know a lot of people, friends, bosses, co-workers who smell and it makes me subliminally think less of them. I know they probably can't help it, nor are they aware of it, but if someone comes up to me to ask a question, part of me wants to answer, "Oh, I'm sorry, all I heard was 'blah blah blah, I smell like a taint in summertime.'"

So I'm always afraid that I secretly smell and people are thinking the same about me. Because no one respects a smelly fucker, that's just science.

At this event, I my media contact is a very attractive young lady (saying that makes me feel like I'm a 45-year-old kid toucher, but I don't know any other way to say it), who I don't really want to think I smell.

So I'm sitting there shooting some shit, and all I can think is, "Holy Santa Claus shit, am I washing over her with a wave of pure stank right now?"

I kept trying to get covert whiffs of my pits in the middle of conversation, which is probably even worse than smelling. I think I was okay though, either that or she was a damn good actress.

Since this thing is being held in a cemetery, naturally death is a focal theme of the evening, meaning respect must be at the top of every attendee's priority list. The music was soft, slow guitar music, which I didn't recognize immediately.

Then I hear the familiar verse, "Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven?"

Tears in fucking heaven? At a cemetery? How cliche can you get?

Then I started to thing, maybe this is just their "Death Mix" I spent a lot f time figuring out what else it could contain, I'm looking for slow, mournful songs about a tragic death.

• Neil Diamond - Morningside
  
• Bob Dylan - Knockin' on Heaven's Door (possibly more cliche than Tears in Heaven)
• Elton John - Candle in the Wind
• Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (if you don't weep openly at this song you are not human)
• Cannibal Corpse - Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains

But it was moot, because it wasn't "Death Mix 2009" they were playing (but tell me that doesn't sound like an awesome Jason Statham flick). No, it was Eric Clapton's "Unplugged."

Weird choice. Made even weirder by the fact that they skipped the unplugged version of Layla, which is a fucking travesty in and of itself. But how weird is that? Let's look closer.

• Someone made the choice to put Eric Clapton Unplugged into the CD player, or queue it up in their iPod.
  
• That same someone made sure that Layla would be skipped, or it was deleted from the album.
  
• Layla is the most uptempo song on the album, so apparently someone thought that it needed to be skipped lest the atmosphere of a solemn occasion be besmirched.

The conclusion: Whoever selected the music was willing to have Tears in Heaven played at all costs. It's no coincidence that it was playing as soon as we all walked in. I'm surprised it wasn't on a continuous loop, but that probably would have been too much.

I'm working this event, and right away, there are no prospects in the female department. I'm trying to spend a Friday hunting stink, but there's little to be found.

The only person in the building I would nail (namely, the only person not collecting Social Security) was one of the caterers. I had a moment with her at one point. She walked by me with hands full of dishes, and a fork dropped in front of me.

Here's my chance, I told myself, if this goes well, you could be smashing some hot caterer ass in a bathroom stall within the hour.

I picked up the fork as slowly as I could, searching my brain for a good line.

"Well, well, well, stick a fork in you, you're done."

Not great, but not an abortion either. She gave a quick smile, so I had laid the foundation. Which promptly came crumbling down, as I laid the fork back on the plate, and it fell off again.

It's times like this that the men are separated from the boys. Can I come top my own mediocre zinger with one that's sure to make the panties drop, or will I fly to close to the clam on wings of bad metaphor?

"Of course, that's not all I'd stick in you."



Hint: I'm the plane.

So that was a no go.

But alas, the night had other options in laid out for me.

In this case, it was a blonde that was at least two inches taller than me, in just a knockout of a cocktail dress.

I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but I loooove tall chicks. Maybe it's the subconscious knowledge that only by impregnating a giraffe and/or black chick will I be able to sire an NBA Finals MVP, or maybe it's just because I like long legs, but here we are.

So I started hovering creepily around this tall chick. She was with a chick that had the exact same dress on, only she was 6 feet wide. Yecccch.

I caught her in some pictures, which I would post, but I am currently touching myself to, and you can't upload an open file. I'll upload them when I'm done, so around Halloween. Look for them then.

But much to my chagrin, the delicious elixir that allows me to go up and get rejected by chicks I wouldn't even make eye contact with, alcohol, was nowhere to be found. The bar? Serving water, iced tea and canned soda.

Are you fucking kidding me?

So I went up to the bartender, and I asked for a coke, in a glass with ice, "and, hey buddy, why don't you only fill 'er up halfway with coke, wink wink."

My first mistake was saying the words "wink wink" instead of actually winking. Bad start.

He didn't know what I meant.

"I mean, why don't you fill it half full of coke, and fill the other half with some Crown Royal?"

That fucker acted like he didn't have a stash behind the counter. You're telling me that these people are this fucking stupid without booze. I had just eavesdropped on some general's wife's conversation, the bitch had to be hammered, she was slurring like a mug.

Either that or she was a stroke victim, which, now that I think about it, would explain the wheelchair...

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, I did my shit, and spent the rest of the evening trying to insert myself into as many family photos as possible. With a nut hanging out. My khaki pants made it pretty easy, and I hope they aren't discovered until those photos are ten feet high on a projector screen.

Later, I'll get into Saturday, part II of this weekend in the trenches.

Sorry for this being so long. I would apologize, but I never apologize. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I am.