Adventures in Dani-Land...

...or "How My Life Resembles a Sucker"

You ever had a stint of time where it's like you're porous to everything that flies past you? 

Like you just attract the bad ju ju?

I had "the" work event this past weekend.

It was brutal.

I have been suffering with the same cluster headache for what just became 5 full weeks today.

Nothing seems able to really help it very much. I've had minimal, if any relief from it.

The weekend was no exception. 

By Saturday morning, I wanted someone to cut my head off with an ax... and they could've in the afternoon, as we attended a local ax throwing lounge for our social event.

Honestly, it was a great choice - they had loads of fun.

To be clear, it all went without much of a hitch. 

It wasn't without its own mayhem, but to anyone who didn't look behind the curtain, it went swimmingly.

I've coined a metaphor:

It's like a Big Mouth Jaw Breaker... you know, one of these bad boys:

From the outside layer, it's all candy and perfect.

That's how our conference looked.

Thing is, we suck... on them and things can never be left perfect... so we dig down into the inside layers... sometimes even biting little chunks out of it... this is where you locate a few jack asses that have to find fault with everything. The ones that notice typos in the program (which I agree is bad, but we literally did not have sufficient lead time to proof them and the system didn't overwrite everything that was put into the template... it was most unfortunate - and my boss did not handle herself well) and stir up an entire table full of board members later that evening over drinks, until it was blown way out of proportion.

Then we suck a little more... and things start to sour. Now you're dealing with the same jack ass, jacked up for as much ammo as possible, with which, he will stir the shit pot - vigorously. This time, he got on the elevator with my husband and me. As we were about to exit on our floor - and bear in mind, the conference was over. It was 11:00 at night and I was finally off duty... he asks my husband if we had a dining room table in our room... you know, because that's a land mark of a suite in that hotel. Of course my husband answered yes, as I was, in fact, given a suite... at no extra charge because of the relationship I had formed with the hotel staff. As a thank you for not being a dick.

He is already beaking off about it... I guarantee it.

Here's the thing, I did not get paid a dime over my annual salary to work three sixteen hour days in a row of seven straight - because I worked the holiday Monday last week. Not one dime. Not a bonus, not overtime... nothing.

Why shouldn't I have had a nice room? 

It didn't cost anything. Nothing, in fact - my room wound up free for all three nights... but because this entitled, teeny little man has to be Mr Big Nuts, it's going to even overshadow the whole typo debacle... why should I get an upgrade, when he did not?!

It's in around this place that we find the other shit disturber lurking... with comments like "I'm one of the smart rats... I'm escaping before this bitch goes down" as he was informing my boss that he would be leaving the 'brotherhood'. This is the same man that talks like a mentally challenged person while we are having dinner with someone from Occupational Health and Safety and thinks it's hysterical.

Jack ass!

But if you remember eating these suckers, it was the center that was the bitterest of all. That powdery ball of chemical that makes your cheeks flush red and leaves your mouth feeling chapped on the inside.

That's where you'll find me.

At the end of five weeks of frantic planning, stress induced headaches and six bottles of Tums... followed closely by a three day trek through the dunes of Hell...

Here's me... the fat chick that wore a fantastic jumpsuit to the last event, the dinner. 

May as well have been a bulls eye.

We had a magician perform for us after the meal. 

He was funny, but a little sardonic. 

He was picking people from the audience to come up and assist with various tricks.

I accepted early on that I was a likely target for him.

I stood out.

Finally it came. He looked right at me and said you, there... what's your name. I answered at the same time as the woman he was actually looking at, and her name apparently was just like my name (IRL) except with an 'A' on the front of it. I naturally assumed he'd misheard me when he repeated the name, and continued to walk up to the stage.

I didn't want to be a stick in the mud and refuse to participate... nobody wants to be that girl. 

Except that 'my name with an A on the front' DID want to be that girl, so she never stood up. I had no idea any of this had transpired until I was stepping up on the stage and he said "Uh... okay, I guess you'll be my volunteer". 

It was at that moment I realized what had happened.

I was mortified.

But I'm a trooper and I've had a whole lot of experience in shitty situations, so I soldiered on.

I was funny.

I was charming.

I even had a moment where he said "it's okay, don't feel bad, I picked you" and I whipped back, "but you didn't pick me!"

Everyone laughed and according to my table, upon my return, I had saved myself with that comment.

Anyone that came up to me afterward was very positive and made a point to say I handled myself like a pro. (Pro what I really couldn't say... but that's what they said.) 

It was painfully humiliating.

My husband captured my 'performance' on his camera.

They'll be finding pieces of him for decades.

What I will say about this whole event is that most everyone seemed to enjoy themselves - so that is positive. 

The centerpieces were lovely and I was proud of our work in organizing everything. 

The events went very well and were well attended, and the talks were also mostly very well done.

By and large, it was a roaring success... but I still feel like I may vomit every time I think about it.

I'm thinking next year, I'll just call in sick.