Six Hours I Will Never Get Back

I just arrived home in a formal dress and heels with a Sonic bag swinging from my hand and a wine headache as big as Texas. I attended our local advertising club awards show this evening for the first time, which I have since concluded is naught but a communal circle-jerk for the local ad agencies in my metro area. Needless to day, I was not really impressed.

I decided to go because I worked my ass off on a project last year that was entered in the competition. We know it won, just not what level of award it won, and I wanted to be there to see it win big. Also, because I had never been before and I thought it would be fun. HA, ha ha ha ha, silly girl.

Acting on information (as it turns out, erroneous information) that this was a black-tie event, I started suiting up about 4:30. Hair, makeup, layers of restrictive undergarments, heels - it's been a while since my toilette has been this extensive. The Little Man wasn't sure quite what to make of it. At one point he walked in the bathroom when I was standing in undergarments with a mask on my face. He got this look of horror on his little mug, left the room, then reappeared in seconds with a pair of my pajama pants that he tried to hand to me. "If you're going to look this scary, woman, at least put on some pants!"

I left for The Event around 6:00, all gussied up with my Little Man in tears because Mommy was leaving, and Mommy didn't want him touching her or her clothing just then for fear of ick tranfer to her clothes. Poor guy.

I arrived at the Event completely uncomfortable and overdressed, displaying cleavage out to here which my boss's boss and my boss's boss's boss were privy to - not the most comfortable feeling. And without a buddy. This was my critical mistake. I didn't ensure that at least ONE of my cohorts was going, consequently, I ended up being on my own most of the evening. There were plenty of people from the agency I worked for there, but I didn't really know any of them & they seemed disinclined to take in a fledgling. At least they gave us $20 apiece for booze, so the wine headache was free.

The awards started, the MC did his shtick, and they slowly started through the categories. Finally they got to Interactive. They went through all the winners - not ONE was a project I worked on, and we had submitted FIVE! Shut out. Damn.

A few more categories in, our VP came up to the table with our award. Apparently one of our projects actually did win, but they FORGOT TO ANNOUNCE IT. The awards themselves don't have the specific name of the project on it, so I still don't know which of the five it was. Even if it was the one I poured sweat and tears into and completely railroaded through to deadline myself, whoever sent in the nomination form listed me as the assistant producer instead of the lead producer anyway. Sigh.

Oh yeah, the Sonic. There I was, in a rotten mood, being slowly strangled to death by my clothing, and slightly drunk, and they KEPT PLAYING SONIC COMMERCIALS because the Sonic creative was a big winner. So, I left early and stopped by for a small burger and tots. It was the least I could do for myself, right?

And in answer to your invitation to go to that upcoming awards show or fancy-dress party, HELL NO.