Quickie.

Ok, so I have to share this ECRW conference story quickly, because the kids will be up in ten minutes, and I need to light a fire underneath my big ol behind.

So there we are at the conference, at the Bellevue Hilton, in the ballroom (The chandeliers were the size of my minivan...and there were 3 of them!), eating filet mignon...*SIGH* Fancy fancy fancy...I am trying to figure out which fork goes with what, and vibrator facts girl (see below) leans over and says, "start at the outside and work your way in, that's what they said on Titanic!" So I am trying not to laugh about the invention of the adult toy conversation from a few minutes before, because and old lady at our table shushed me, and I already felt like a moron...

And I bit into a chunk of cartilage or something hard and un chewable in my filet.

Now, I try hard not to give in to my gag reflex very often. I mean, after four kids and working as a professional nanny, you've seen a lot. Once you've scooped poop out of the bathtub with your bare hand, or had your beautiful baby boy take a whiz in your hair because you've failed to change his diaper at the speed of light, and you've survived slicing your finger almost off while cutting into french bread, soaking the bread in bright red, and you've woken up to a little girl who ate herself sick at wedding reception only to find partially digested cake and various fruits all over her bedroom, including the ceiling, and you've cleaned up dog crap and hair off of the wall because your dog suddenly decided she was terrified of her crate and sh*tting was the only way to work through her stress, and you've given birth all over a doctors expensive suit jacket because they didn't believe you when you screamed "IT'S COMING!!!" ...........

Your gag reflex tends to relax a bit.

Or at least mine did.

But when I bit into the filet mignon at the Bellevue Hilton below the lovely chandeliers...my gag reflux kicked into high gear. I thought that I would try to swallow it whole, after all, I couldn't very well jerk a partially chewed piece of meat out of my mouth, and set it onto the plate in front of all of those women, and the old broad who shushed me, could I? But then when I did that, it kept returning! It was like a triangular piece of plastic and it literally would not go down!

So I decided to spit it out. I looked around to see if anyone would notice, but everyone was staring at me. Well, they probably weren't staring at me, but it was a round table, and my back was to the stage that they were all looking at, thus making them stare past ME to see the presentation! So that was out. Then I decided to sneak out to the hallway, find a garbage can, and discreetly spit it into the garbage can. Yes, that was the perfect plan. No one would be the wiser. Right?

Wrong.

I ran into someone I knew right by the exit. She and I talked for a couple of minutes, all the while I was holding this lovely little filet nugget in my cheek, a little pool of vomit in the back of my throat. It was horrible. She probably thought I was nutso. I'm almost certain one of my eyes was twitching as I spoke, trying not to hurl on her lovely vegetable medley sitting there, and I know for a fact I was twitching, because she commented that my hand was shaking.

"Don't be so nervous, dear. We're all friends here."


No offense, lady, but I doubt you'll want to be my friend if I vomit on your veggies. Just sayin'...

I finally got to the hallway, and yakked into a garbage can. It was gross. And then I had to go back into the ballroom smiling, pretending like I had to leave to powder my nose like some sort of southern belle, when the truth was....I'd left to regurgitate something into a Bellevue Hilton garbage can. Wouldn't you think that the Hilton would have grisel-free filet mignon? Apparently not. Apparently the Hiltons are paying too much for Paris' bail to fork out the dough for decent cattle these days. Stupid Paris Hilton. Stupid chunk of unchewable crap in my meat. Stupid lady for shushing me. Ok, that had nothing to do with it, but it still sort of embarrasses me.

It was a long and interesting evening.

Brooke Moss.