Rewarded and Recognized

Well, not me. But Mary was. And so was the boss, Robin. So here is the story of the Rewards and Recognition Banquet we attended on Thursday.

We were pretty much up in the air the whole day as to whether or not we would go at all, because I didn't want to go unless a fun group was going (which is what I said earlier). Mary had appointments all day, so she wasn't sure if she'd be done in time. So we waited. As it turned out, she got done in time for us to leave the funeral home by about 4:15. This still wasn't early enough for us to take a ferry, so we ended up driving around. The drive over was really fun. I can't remember everything we laughed about, but there were a couple of times we laughed so hard my stomach was hurting. Usually it involves one of us saying something the others didn't hear correctly and repeated back what they heard and it's hysterical. On the way over, it was just me, Mary, and John. Robin and Yvonne went also, but they each took their own vehicles because they went at different times. So here we are driving into Seattle at night... I love big cities at night. They look pretty. I don't want to live in one, but it sure is pretty to look at them. Also, the flash was off, so it's a little blurry. But you get the idea :).

After driving along beside a guy who had a permanent snarl on his face (or a bad case of smelly gas, Mary speculated), we got to the venue -- which was an Elks Club -- about 5 minutes before it started. Mary and I had just gotten into the door and already we were being silly. I'm not sure if you remember the annoying dude I mentioned from my Canada trip (if not, click that link and you can read all about it), but he is at all of these things. He was at this one too. He was at the entrance table, trying to get people to buy these medallions to get more raffle tickets and also to help with some foundation. Anyway, he had a big gold one around his neck (they looked like replica Olympic Medals). My first thought was, "I pity the fool who doesn't have one of these!" I told that to Mary later and she busted out laughing. Ah... There's nothing quite like a Mr. T reference (like the one my friend Donna gave me when we were sitting at a graduation ceremony when I worked at Troy Dothan and the Chancellor walked across the stage with all his regalia and his big gold medallion that stood for something, but I don't know what... Talk about trying really hard to not bust out laughing!!!)

So my first order of business, once we made it past Mr. T, was to use the little girls' room. Well, this was great in an of itself... and oh-so-picture-worthy. One set of bathrooms that we'd come across had signs on them that said: "Closed forever." The other set that we found could only accomodate one person at a time. And the door didn't lock. It looked like a regular ladies' room where you push in and then there are several stalls from which to choose. Not so much though, as we soon found out. No lock on this door, one potty. And the only way to indicate you were in there (unless you had a buddy standing guard outside) was to switch the sign on the outside of the door to "Occupied." This was so funny to me, considering the number of people at this event, that I had to take a picture.

Shortly after this, we met a lady who has been working with the company for about 3 weeks. She is in sales with one of the parks and she was way chipper. And she showed us her coffin earrings that she had made. And then we discussed the difference between a casket and a coffin. For those of you who are in suspense as to the difference, I will fill you in: a casket has four sides (it's a rectangle). A coffin has six sides, because it has two extras at the top. Google image it if you don't know what I mean. So, there's some funeral home and cemetery trivia for ya ;). After this point, we found the table with Yvonne and Robin and sat down. We had nametags, and Mary wrote Javier Jalapeno on hers. I thought I'd go for alliteration, so I wrote Hila the Histrionic (which means overly dramatic, which is probably accurate, though Mary and I were doing this as part of an inside joke). And then Mary thought it'd be funny if I added the word "Hot" in it too, because she told me I was "hot" after I put my eyeliner on in the car on the way over and we started quoting Paris... "That's so hot." So, my nametag said "Hot Hila the Histrionic". I don't really know why Mary and I get so silly at these things, but we do. So we had to take a picture of me and my name.

We held back a little for the line to die down for food. Turns out that was a bit of a mistake. Though we did get to witness some hilarious goings-on of everyone else. We talked about the Anderson Sisters; we watched Yvonne's roll roll (now that was funny); we struck up conversations with the other people at the back of the line... And we were sad when we got up and found the salad gone and only like 3 pieces of beef left and one partial helping of potatoes left. And they didn't seem to be being replenished. Next time we'll probably work harder at being in the front of the line! But eventually they did bring more beef. And the rice was really good. They had salmon, but blech. Not a fish fan. Oh my gosh!!! I just remembered a hilarious story that happened while we were waiting for the line to shorten. One of the other guys at our table was one of the first in line, so he made it back with his food before we even got up from the table. There was something on his plate I couldn't identify, so I leaned over to Mary, and pointing at the food item, I said, "Hey Mary... What do you suppose that thing over there is?" She looks and says, "A guy in a rust-colored shirt." And I laughed so hard! I totally wasn't pointing out the weird looking dude across the room, but I guess it looked like I was! And the fact that I said "thing" and she was still thinking I was referring to the guy made it even more hilarious...

Upon returning to the table, Robin stabbed my butter pat with a fork and took it for his own roll. I thought he was just messing with me and would give it back, but it turns out not so much. He used the whole thing for his roll. Loser. So that one guy that had gotten his food early had about 5 pats of butter he wasn't using, so I asked for one of his. He gave me like 3. And later, Robin asked me to pass him the water pitcher (which had one slice of cucumber floating in it) and I said, "I hope you get the cucumber." Mary busts out laughing and says, "I think that's the funniest and meanest thing I've ever heard!" They had a couple of games and then they got to the rewards. Oh, and dessert was cheesecake, by the way. There were about a million rewards. Our location got recognized quite a few times, which was really cool. Mary got recognized too, which is a great accomplishment!

Everything finally wrapped up around 8:45, and we scrambled to make it to the ferry. It wasn't a far drive, but we were still in Seattle, so there was traffic with which to contend. And sure enough, even with the GPS, we missed a turn. Because we weren't listening to it. But, we still made it with about 5 minutes to spare before they had us board the ferry. On the ride back, all of us who were at the function were on the ferry, so we all got out of our vehicles and headed up to laugh and tell stories. So here we are.

The ferry ride was quite short, so before too long, we were back in the vehicles, getting ready to dock and drive off. Before we docked, though, we got John to take a picture of me and Mary.

When we got back to the funeral home, we decided to go inside since Joe was there cleaning. It was his first night cleaning all by himself, and he had the place locked up like Ft. Knox. He was vacuuming when we finally got in the door, so he didn't see or hear us, even though we came in right behind him. In an effort not to scare him, Mary yelled really loud that we were all in there. Apparently there isn't a way to not scare someone who is alone in a funeral home and not expecting others to arrive. Poor guy... He whipped around and his eyes were as big as saucers. He lifted the vaccuum up off the floor and was pointing it at us like it was a weapon! He soon recognized us. But poor guy. So we did what we had to do (ie put away the van keys and used the restroom) and then we headed out. I got home around 10:45, got a shower, and did random stuff until about 1 in the morning. That seems to be my new bed-time most nights...

So, that was Thursday night. It's fun to do something different and venture into the big city of Seattle... as long as I'm not the one driving ;)! I'm such a wimp :).