I've never gone commando on a glass-bottom boat, but I have done something just as bad. My friend Juju bumped into me today at Mysterious Job That I'm Not Allowed to Write About Number Two (so to speak) and whispered a tale of horror to me: evidently she went to a going-away party for a co-worker which inadvertently turned into a wake for another co-worker who had been buried the day before. There she was in a red sparkly top, ready to launch a colleague off into the wilds of China, when she was seated at a table full of dour-looking people who were, she quickly learned, the relatives of the deceased who had heard about the 'do and had assumed it was send-off for their dear departed--rather than a send-off for a colleague who was not headed Upstairs but down South, as in "Guangzhou," not as in "Hell." (Same difference, if you ask me: I don't want to be anywhere hot enough to grow bananas, but I digress.) She fortuitously had brought along a black blazer and she grimly kept it on while people told soft sad stories about the deceased. She kept the bottle of Moet tucked away in her handbag and slipped it into the hand of the colleague just before she left.
"Worse thing ever!" she said. "I sat at this table and was saying, 'Hey, everybody, why the long faces, it's not like we'll never see him again' and then someone on my left kicked me and whispered, 'Shut up, you're sitting next to the wife of the colleague who was BURIED yesterday!' "
This reminded me mightily of something that happened to me years ago which truly outshone her experience in awfulness, and being a sweet person, I told her my story. Big Daddy, Sissy, Lulu, if you are reading, STOP NOW!!!!!
I'm from a small-ish city and I went to university in small towns, hence a few details will be changed. The long and the short of it: many years ago I had a brief and very sweet affair with an older man--not a colleague, and not a professor of mine. He was smart, sophisticated, very funny, and really supportive of me and my collection of neurosis. We had a very short fling and then as usual I finished what I was doing in the US and packed up my stuff and returned to China. I figured we may--or may not--see each other again. I didn't have email at the time--or even a computer that worked--and I moved a bit so I wasn't surprised by not hearing from him. I took the good from it and moved on and as time passed I dusted the memory off and felt happy to have known this nice, nice man. Well, after a few years I did get a computer and had email again and lo and behold, I received an email from him asking if this person was indeed me...it was. We corresponded a few times, progressively intimate and sweet emails, and agreed to meet when I came back for summer vacation. His last email was unmistakably flirtatious and we set up a lunch date with a promise of, shall we say, more to come...I flew home, took a nap, went to the beauty parlor, borrowed a car, and drove to his office.
There I was, clad in his favorite color (pink) with my hair freshly blonded looking like I just fell off the top of a Christmas tree...and there were all these people in and around his office, some openly weeping, some red-eyed, a few white-faced. I walked up to the receptionist's desk and said, "What the hell?" and was immediately cut off by a familiar voice saying, "Zanne? Zanne, is that you?" I turned around to see the guy I had a HUGE crush on in school. He had obviously been crying and was very confused to see me. I was equally stunned. I had not seen him since that summer night in the 80's when we graduated and I barely recognized him. Something in my head went bong-bong-bong--something was not right. People were leaving and I was staring at this man, and he was staring at me, and after a long time he pursed his lips and said, "Well, I see you must have known my father." Ah---so THAT'S why they had the same last name!
Ok, it gets worse. At the funeral--actually, just a memorial service--I noticed quite a few women staring daggers at one another. Many were dressed in the same shade of pink that I was wearing (although I guessed they hadn't just had a wax and were probably wearing panties) and all of us were of a type--short, snub-nosed, golden haired, with knockers. I was somewhat relieved to see I wasn't the eldest. One of the speakers at the funeral--excuse me, memorial service--mentioned The Deceased's dedication to the feminist movement and I thought for a moment I would laugh. Various jokes in extremely bad taste about stiffness etc ran through my head--but through it all, a profound feeling of gratitude for having known this lovely man. There was no way I could lean over and tell his son--the one I had SUCH a crush on in school-- that his dad had been the nicest lover I had ever had, the one by whom I set the bar, but it has occurred to me that really, this was the most comforting and kindest thing I could have said. I've never met anyone who appreciated me in quite the same way. I know that, had he been there, he would have been rolling in the aisles at the delightful inappropriateness of it all--my groomed and naughty self with her empty stomach and fierce jet lag, the clones I sat with, the sidelong looks and pursed lips among his groupies--in the wildly horrible setting of rampant grief.
In the midst of life we are in death and as he once said, sometimes in the midst of tragedy we stumble upon something so damned funny that we just have to laugh.
I finished telling this story to Juju and mentioned that I would post it later. She said, "I shouldn't admit this, but your story was WORSE than mine and I feel a LOT better!" Well, that's what I'm here for, babe: I live to serve.
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