Coffee and Spanx - Tales From a Convention

It was a wild weekend, dear readers and loyal subjects!  Okay, not really but if I make some stuff up (i.e. totally lie) I could make it seem that way.  Overall, it was a state convention for a service organization.  These aren't really known as wild and crazy kinds of events.  But this one did have one advantage over some others. The Queen was there!  I'm not sure that this group of people is ever really ready for me, but I keep showing up anyway.  That deer in the headlights look so many of them get is just too much fun for me to pass up!  Plus there are the people who do "get" me. They always make it worth it.  And they know who they are so thanks, everyone!

I will admit that I learned a few things at this convention.  The first thing is that hotel coffee cups are laughably small.  Add to that the fact that no one ever even really fills them up, and it's a bad combo for someone like me who is really just NOT a morning person.  Yet there I found myself.  It was a few minutes before 8am (an totally obscene time of the morning on a Saturday, I might add) sitting through a breakfast and auction.  Alright, I did enjoy the auction.  I talked about it yesterday, but it took more than one cup of their coffee to wake me up.  From what I could tell 1 cup equalled about 2 tablespoons of coffee or there about.  One cup of that wasn't going to do anything for me.  Oh and one of my friends, Gary I'm talking to you, had the audacity to ask me if I wanted.... DECAF!!!  I almost had a little heart attack right there!  I took one look at him and asked if I looked like a decaf kind of girl!  He admitted that I didn't and finally helped me collect coffee cups which I then demanded ALL be filled with coffee.  That's how I made it through the morning. I was chain coffee drinking.  That's like chain smoking for those of you who don't know, only wetter.  It ended up working so well that I decided to do it again at the formal dinner that night (see below).

This seemed like such a good plan at the time.... if only it hadn't been for the second thing I learned.

The second thing I learned is that Spanx work... sort of.  Oddly this is one of those things that are complete cultural phenomenons that I had never previously tried.  I'd had that little episode with my formal dress' zipper though (click here to read about my formal wear trying to kill me) so I thought maybe it was time help out my next dress... a beautiful blue sheath I had found while shopping the day before, by the way, thanks for asking.  While I was shopping I decided it was time to give the whole Spanx thing a try.  Maybe I'd look like a size 2.  (If you're going to dream, dream big!)  So I very carefully perused the plethora of options and selected something that looked like it'd be nice under the dress I found.  Little did I know it was an instrument of torture!

I got ready for the dinner that night and grabbed my new acquisitions just before it was time to go.  I started off with the Spanx.  Wow!  I thought for a moment there that I was going to need a contractor's license , perhaps a circus aerial act and some rigging just to get that thing on!  Holy cannoli, people!  Was this thing supposed to compress and smooth or fully cut my body in half?!  All I could envision was whoever designed these things cackling with laughter in some back room while counting the fortune they were making and wondering what the hell women were doing to put them on!  MPH sat there straight faced the entire time I was making a scene and trying to get them on.  I was jerking material right and left, grunting and occasionally stomping my foot then finally bouncing up and down in circles around the room as I tried to pull them the rest of the way up.  I happened to look over at him and he was just staring at me wide eyed.  I think I yelled "What?!" at him in exasperation.  It would appear that I had just rendered him nearly speechless!  And let's face facts, living with me the man is pretty much ready for just about any scenario.  It's not like it's the first time I've made a scene!  He finally sucked in a deep breath and asked in an awe filled voice "What are you trying to do?!"  I figured it would be useless to explain it to him so I just grunted again.  Frankly, I don't think I could take a deep enough breath to do much else.  That and I was getting sort of dizzy from the change in circulation this contraption was causing, but I soldiered on!  I pulled on the dress, looked in the mirror, convinced myself that I was looking very size 4-ish and stepped into my heels.  I was ready!

I was so NOT ready!  I found that I could breathe shallowly and that I only turned slightly pink in the face after getting used to the Spanx.  So really that part wasn't so bad after a while.  What was bad was the coffee issue.  You see, MPH and I were sitting at the head table up on a dais.  And as you noticed above, I wasn't about to try to get through the evening without a significant amount of coffee.  The whole thing went rather well through dinner until it was almost time for the speakers to start.  That's when it happened.  I had to pee!  Holy cannoli didn't even BEGIN to cover it!  There I was in my beautiful blue dress heading to the little Queen's room when I realized that in order to do what I'd come to do, I was going to have to get most of the way back OUT of those Spanx... then put them on again!  Oh just shoot me now!  I started to panic about half way there!  There was no WAY I could go through that whole process in a stall in the bathroom.  I'd bounced about halfway around an entire hotel room just getting them on the first time!  I was doomed... DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!  I thought about stabbing myself with a knife and then excusing myself to go stitch my own wound up with a sewing kit from the front desk.  That should buy me both time and some sympathy for when I just never came back.  But I felt bad about leaving MPH there alone... alright not really, but I figured he'd be onto me before I made it far enough for it to be worth my while.  There was nothing I could do. I was just going to have to give it a shot.

Suffice it to say that that was the longest potty break I've ever taken.  I think MPH was about to send out a search party.  Seems he thought I'd finished dinner and made a run for the hills instead of coming back to sit through the rest of the evening.  I did make it back eventually but not entirely as I'd left.  One advantage of having ample cleavage is the storage space.  Fortuantely Spanx fold up nicely and tuck away if you just pitch a screaming fit, jerk them off in the bathroom and stuff them down the front of your dress.  I might not have looked so size 4-ish when I went back into the ballroom, but I had an amazing chest!