Paula told me a story last night about her day at work which included a coworkers birthday celebration. This is at a television network...one of the raunchy ones. They hire this poor guy a midget. Not a singing telegram or something mildly embarrassing, but a midget who shows up with balloons and a cake and who allegedly is going to strip. The word gets out, however, that the network attorney who handles sexual harrassment issues is in the building so someone makes sure the guy does not strip. So what does he do in this completely awkward ten minutes? An office mate turns on her iTunes and the little person starts dancing. The belly roll dancing - the amphibious type, on the floor. Some schmuck in the office calls out for the birthday boy to dance with him. The birthday boy is meanwhile trying to edge his way out of the room, but SOMEHOW, SOME WAY, what unfolds has to be a birthday boy's freakin' nightmare for the next forty years. The little guy grabs the birthday boy's thigh, gets under him, picks him up off the ground onto his little shoulders and spins him around. With half the office clapping.
Who's idea was this and who represents this kind of talent are my two biggest questions. And of course, the third being - did the birthday boy run for that attorney?
This reminds me of a wedding I went to back in Illinois some time in the nineties for a couple friends of mine from high school/college. There I was sitting at my table enjoying my cocktail watching the folks dance and mingle while my other girlfriends were roaming outside smoking, etc. All of a sudden the doors to the hall open and in walk two little people dressed in puffy foam costumes that make them look like cartoon white trash bride and groom and their foam heads are larger and taller than their bodies... They proceed to do a routine that lasts, I kid you not, thirty minutes. It included them seating the real bride and groom at the edge of the dance floor to make them watch the show so we were made to watch how they sat uncomfortably with pasted smiles on their faces. The little people danced and made old people dance with them while they played out this mockery of marriage. The scene was that the groom was a complete flirt with everyone in the room, making sexual innuendoes, the bride gets jealous and comedy ensues. With the bad country music they've brought to act this out, this foamy groom at one point shimmies his way toward me, and gets about an inch from my face which is now stone cold when I say through my teeth, "Don't. Touch. Me." He does a mock surprise movement, says something from under his foam, like, "you're a tough egg," and shimmies away and I take a big glug off my cocktail and wonder where the Hell my friends are - they're MISSING IT!
The next day when I was retelling the story to my family, it seemed like most of them had seen this "act" at a wedding or a party or a company picnic before. Big bucks for that kind of "entertainment", I guess - somewhere. My moral to that story is - I don't care if you're an accountant and it's tax season and your fiance' is a physiologist - don't let your brothers plan your wedding.
Posted by nora murphy at July 16, 2005 08:59 AM | TrackBack