Potlucks and Root Canals! Oh, the holiday joy....
I hope this finds you all well. Many of you will think I am out of my mind over this one (or perhaps you've all known that for years). Ms. Shay, I trust you all remember being regaled with stories about Ms. Shay wants to get everyone (or actually it appears only the people that sit near her or that she works directly with, but I digress) in the holiday spirit, so she purchased and erected two miniature Christmas trees and made centerpieces for all of the conference room tables in our building (I will give her props they are cute, entirely unnecessary in my opinion, but nicely done). Additionally, she bought cards and gifts for everyone on the team. (Note: I did not return the favor largely because I am an ass, but also because.... nope, really just because I am an ass and I was too lazy to go shop for an obligatory cheap gift that I didn't really want to give.) But the kicker in all of it is the office potluck that she arranged for everyone in our building and a handful of people that she works with in two of the other buildings. All told there were about 50 people invited to this soiree. Don't get me wrong I love to cook (clearly from the size of my ass I also LOVE to eat) and I love to entertain. Inviting people over for dinner and drinks is fantastic, but I absolutely detest potlucks. HATE HATE HATE them!
Lucky for all of you there is some childhood trauma involved in my hatred of potlucks, which ironically, is also why (OK potlucks are only one small part of this one) I possess such staunch anti-church views. As a kid growing up poor and in a small town I was forced to endure what feels like hundreds of church potlucks. All of them offering a cornucopia of crock-pots containing a brown mushy pseudo-meat substance, the obligatory cocktail wieners (HA! it's not everyday you can work obligatory and wiener into the same sentence) in nasty-ass barbecue sauce, a few thousand dried out dinner rolls which were likely too hard to even be used for hockey pucks, but the piece-de-resistance had to be the completely unnatural and terrifyingly bright jello salad. (I swear I just threw up a little typing that.) I was also raised by a mother who expected us to "try everything" but also to clean our plates, so not only did I have to attend these events, but I had to actually eat the food (I did get much more creative in finding ways to not eat there it as I got older). I remember one church potluck where all the kids got to go outside to play while I sat there crying because I didn't want to eat that food. Thank GOD for therapy helping me deal with all of this fun 35 years later!
Now I realize that work potlucks are slightly different. Now you get meatballs in various kinds of sauce instead of just cocktail wieners and there are fewer crock-pots of brown mush, but there are a lot more items that have to be microwaved to reheat them, so you get a variety of lukewarm pasta-esque dishes (yeah, I totally made up that word because some of that shit isn't easily recognizable as pasta, so I am just guessing that's what it contains). The one redeeming quality in work potlucks is that there are also a few hundred varieties of chips or crackers and dips, so there is at least something that I COULD eat without remaining at the table for three hours crying about not wanting to eat that food.
Lucky for me I found out in late-November that I was likely going to need a root canal and when I went back to the dentist last week he confirmed that I do indeed need to proceed with that. In an attempt to continue hiding these repressed childhood memories from the majority of my co-workers I scheduled a root canal the same day as the potluck. To get out of this one I just have to stop by the store and buy some jello salad to contribute (for real, that might actually happen because I SUCK as a human being) but then just when they start firing up those microwaves to reheat the food substance formerly known as pasta I will have to leave to drive to the Endodontist. Shucks! Maybe next year I can participate in the fun, unless I happen to need a colonoscopy!
Until next time......
XOXO