today was one huge slap on the forehead...

So after staying up until 4 last night working on an Astro. lab, I call in sick to work the next morning because I obviously need more sleep to weather the tide of Tuesday. Why not just go to work, be listless, then fall asleep in my afternoon class as I usually would? Well, because at 11:30 I had agreed to go to a scholarship donor luncheon. Why? Because as much discomfort that I derived from the idea of spending 2 hours ingratiating myself in front of people I hardly knew, and who (as the bio. provided by the Alumni organization told me) were well into their nineties, I figured that....well, it's paying my rent. And I really do appreciate it. And I can be good at small talk. With the very old.

I arrive at the luncheon ten minutes before it starts and wait for my donors to arrive, staring at their name tags, placed on either side of mine at a very well manicured lunch table. To my surprise, they are actually the daughters of the donating couple, in their sixties instead of their nineties...and very pleasant. Relieving. Then everything got going so well. The small talk, although still small, was funny and never contained any unreasonable pauses. They were two nice ladies who both had decades worth of experience in the career that I am most interested in, and, :::ahem::: if I may say so myself, I did a fine job of being sparkling. As the awards ceremony progressed we poked fun at those receiving awards from and for participation in organizations with extrememly long acronyms...my kind of people, really.

The situation was only complicated by my frequent realizations that the woman on my left side started staring intently at me about half way through the salmon. Strange? Yes. As I reached across for my glass of water, I felt something fall into my lap, it was a small white button. Now where could that have come from? I looked at the sleeves of my blouse. Nothing missing. Peered down my front, and to my surprise....I was peering down my front. My top button, with all of the ill-will it could possibly muster, had dislodged itself. I had been sitting, for the past half hour, with completely half of my shirt undone from the top. My kingdom for a safety pin and an unobstructed path to the ladies room. But no. Something up there hates me. The awards proceeded and my very dreadful name was called, I received the obligatory certificate (now residing in my bottom drawer,) and the moment was memorialized, to the horror of everyone, I'm sure, by one of the event staff with a camera.

Scandalizing old people is an arduous process. I think I'll go to bed...