Choice Slices of Entertainment, Travel, & the General WTF of the World

‘Tis the season for corporate Christmas parties! Christmas parties filled with free booze and thrown by huge corporations, just waiting to be crashed. It helps if you have an in, of course, and last night my “in” was d42. Neither one of us worked for the company that rented out a bar in Midtown and even worked out a little buffet, but we definitely took full advantage. Though we paid for it in a variety of ways.

The second we arrived a man grabbed at the front of my chest. It was the sternum piercing; he decided he had to touch it. When I explained what it was he stared in fascinated horror and then stepped on me. As the hours went on, he got closer and closer to falling on me. We soon escaped him, although he would resurface, and often.

The bar was packed with aging men and women in suits. Primarily white men, duh, as the only people “of color” were those who worked as their secretaries. Ah, corporate hell, you haven’t changed since my sad days of temping (just this past summer).

While in search of a bathroom/escape route, we found a room upstairs and… well… They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but we didn’t bring a camera. And I don’t think I can dedicate this many words to a corporate event. Let’s try to find middle ground: Imagine walking into to a dimly lit room, with flashing lights from which emanate not only the heat of a thousand cramped bodies but also 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.” At closer inspection you see a man with more bald spot than not, remaining hair gray, dress pants and a dress shirt on, grinding next to a girl too drunk to know what’s happening and entertained sufficiently by the blinking light on her Santa hat. This man is so low to the ground that you almost tripped over him. He is an SVP as is pointed out to you by another SVP, who then decides you are Irish and must worship dragons. Somewhere in the corner is chubby girl with glasses swinging around glow sticks while not allowing her face to betray emotion.

We spent the night inhaling drinks and eating celery as we were warned to beware a man who couldn’t stop telling everyone about his broken refrigerator. A rescue was staged from this man, who is such a stereotype of the socially incompetent cubicle rat that I wish I could draw comics. We drank up more Jack and Cokes as well as vicious office gossip.

By the end of the night we were nice and buzzed, but getting tired of being fallen on by corporate bigwigs and decided to get going. I found out I lost a glove, which really sucks because I am poor and must now get through winter unigloved. Good thing NYC hasn’t seen a viciously cold winter in a while. Yay global warming.

So what is the moral of this story? There is none. But here is a tip: when (not if) you are walking the streets, midweek, around 11pm, don’t ignore crowds around bars. See if perhaps a sign is posted outside insisting that only employees of a certain company are allowed. Then insist this is a company you are affiliated with. Perhaps you are Paul from payroll. Demand your right to poison your system with alcohol for free for the next hour. It is the holidays after all, damn it! Merry Christmas, Paul!

The whole thing looked like this minus the serious looking man with the mighty antlers