as i have been rolling around on the couch all day in a cold medicine-induced drug haze in the same sweat pants and shirt i've been wearing for approximately 34 days straight (uva pants and a northwestern hoodie, and no, they don't like each other very much), i thought of yet another thing i am truly thankful for in life other than my arctic parka - the fact that, this year, i do not need to attend any company christmas parties. this thought was partly inspired by kathryn's post, and partly inspired by the fact that i spent half the hallucinatory day staring at the green ceramic monkey tommy won last year at his company xmas party, trying to communicate with its innermost thoughts. (the fact that i just wrote a sentence that included tommy winning a ceramic green monkey at an xmas party should be reason enough to prove why i am thankful about not attending any more company xmas parties.)

now that i am a Graduate Student, and not working at blah blah company anymore, i can write about it without remorse, and what i will say for the most part is that it was a nice company with lovely people. except the one dreadful night i attended the xmas party at the president's house.

the night went something like this: arrive with tommy at formalish affair, take off coat, realize suddenly, though this somehow did not strike me before, that the beaded tank top i am wearing is ENTIRELY too low cut and slutty for a work party. have 3-4 gin & tonics; stop caring about prostitutish tank top. chat with workers, eat food, make good friends with open bar bartender person. la la la. it was, at any given point up until then, no worse than any other typical company party: some strained conversations offset by the copious amounts of alcohol. everything was going more or less dandyish until this terrible moment: the president's 30-year-old son reappears in the living room, dressed as santa. tee hee, very funny, cheesy, but whatever, catherine goes to bar to get another drink when she hears the president's booming voice say, "we need some lovely ladies to SIT ON SANTA'S LAP....CATHERINE! GO!"

i froze in my path, then kept on going, assured that the president was joking. but. he. was. not. above my most frenzied of protests, he insisted that i sit IN HIS SON'S LAP in front of the ENTIRE COMPANY wearing my prostitutish tank top while he TOOK PICTURES that would later in the week end up on the kitchen bulletin board. i tell you, i very nearly freaked out right there and puked up in santa's beard. i promise, i am generally game for many things, but sitting in freaky son-of-company-president's santa lap is not one of them. no doubt the entire spectacle, me sitting, plastic-smile-faced, on santa's lap, mentally picturing myself dunking the president's head in the punch bowl, did much to assure everyone of my professionalism and capability.

sigh.

now i am freshly humiliated by that entire creepy experience. i have half a mind to sic some elves on the guy.