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Can you believe it?

I found another one today. Being in an awkward, weird, uncomfortable or otherwise not so desirable "social" situation.

Today, I had to attend a work thing that I really was not looking forward to. I despised even the thought of having to go to it. You see, I have held a lot of resentment against many of my...uh..."co-workers" for an altogether lack of respect towards me. In my mind, I was gonna be sitting in a corner, reading Beyond Chocolate and of course stewing in my resentment. I whole heartedly did not want to go. My boss told me that if what I felt was going to happen actually happened, then I could not return tomorrow. So, I put on my skinny outfit, my award winning "I am pretending to like you smile" and I forged ahead.

I arrived, book in hand, ready to sit and stew; I was a ball of resentful nerves. I hit the break area immediately. Being as intuitive as I possibly could, I grabbed a ginger ale. The bagels, donuts and pastries did seem to appeal to me, oddly enough. The meeting began shortly thereafter; it seemed to be going OK, though I had my book within close reach. Then, I was flooded with sheer shock. *I* was going to be part of one of the small groups and not a pretty prop in the corner? Holy Carp, I was totally prepared to be pissed, read my book and steam about being in the corner, but I was not prepared for actually being involved in this thing.

I was completely nervous. For so long, I had it worked up in my mind that this thing was going to be awful that I had completely failed to be prepared to actually give input. Of course, being the brilliant worker bee that I am, I came through. For a while, my nervousness subsided but that was short lived. It was time for lunch.

We get to the facilities dining room and to my dismay I was immediately notified of a HUGE error on the part of the resort. And because I am trying to keep my job, I won't share the gory details, but trust me, it was pretty big, or so I thought at the time. I ate my lunch so fast, I don't even remember what it was really. I do remember that when someone mentioned dessert, I was first in line. Yep, chocolate cake and cheesecake. I have no idea whether either of them were good or not. I shoved them both down so fast in hopes that this lunch would just be over. Luckily, I didn't walk away stuffed, so I guess I was at least mindful of portions.

Jokes were made about the HUGE error, so it ended up not being so bad but I am sure this one is gonna go down in history as one of those unforgettable errors made my conference/resort staff people. And I have only worked there for a couple of years now, but also trust me when I say there are lots of them. Though everyone was joking, I was still nervous about this whole thing since I was the coordinator for this event. And then came the m&m's.

At our afternoon break, a mere 30 or 45 minutes after the cheesecake and chocolate cake fiasco, I was at it again. I even said the words "All of this looks so good and I am not hungry for any of it". So, how is it that I ended up with about a half a package worth of peanut m&m's and a small bowl of popcorn. I don't know. How is it that I ate all of both without being one tiny ounce of hungry? I don't know.

Well, actually, yes, yes, I do know how.

I was stuffing down resentment, nervousness and embarrassment to avoid having to deal with feeling all of those things while at "retreat". Funny how that works.

Better luck tomorrow.