So today, Tumblr, I ruined the office Christmas party and also dealt my dignity a potentially fatal blow.
It happened like this. BossBoss needed someone to go pick up the side dishes for the evening shift’s meal. These consisted of 2 gallons of gravy, 2 gallons of mashed potatoes, 2 gallons of green beans, and 2 gallons of macaroni and cheese. Neither he, Boss, nor AuntBoss were able to pick these up themselves for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, so BossBoss looked around for a responsible adult who could run this errand for them.
Unfortunately, he mistook me for a responsible adult.
I made it to the restaurant without mishap and the nice young man behind the counter graciously carried the box of food out to my car for me. He advised me to be sure to pick up the box from the bottom because it was too heavy to lift by the carry handles. This should have been my first warning.
The second warning was the fact that I had my keys in the ignition and was about to put the car in gear when the nice young man ran out of the restaurant to stop me, because I was about to drive off without the gravy. But he caught me and the Christmas party was saved.
I drove very carefully back to work and pulled into the reserved courtyard to unload the food since the parking lot proper was much too far away to schlep the food from. I took the gravy in and had to juggle it a bit so I could scan my security badge, but no problem, I got two gallons of piping hot gravy inside without incident.
I thought to myself, Self, maybe we should get a cart for the rest of it. Then I decided that no, this wasn’t necessary, it was only a few steps up to the door and then a few feet inside, and the box couldn’t actually be that heavy, right?
Tumblr, I was wrong. I was so very wrong.
I did have the wisdom to ask a coworker to hold the door open for me (in direct contravention of several official security rules), and I fetched the box from the car. Now, I don’t know what the specific gravity of two gallons each of green beans, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese happens to be, but it was an armload. I hauled them over to the steps and carefully climbed each one... except the last one, where I paused to adjust my grip on the box.
And then, I took the last step, misjudged the distance somehow, caught my toe, dropped the box, and fell on top of it.
It was a splendid fall, with what I think must have been a very satisfying splat sound. I didn’t hear it over the screaming of my dignity as it went down in flames.
My coworker, who is a very kind soul, did his best to assure me that the situation was salvageable and that there was nothing wrong with the food I had just landed on, but since I was wearing green beans and macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes from my chin to my knees, I couldn’t bring myself to believe him.
We hauled the sorry remains inside and I confessed my sins to my Boss, BossBoss, BossBossBoss, and anyone else who saw the mess, and then I took leave so as to attempt to nurse my dignity back to health. It is currently on life support and the outlook is grim.
And that, Tumblr, is how I ruined the office Christmas party.
