A funny story...
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Where: Chicago
When: April 14, 2012
Why: .....Why not
If you don't have time to read all of this, then just skip to the bottom and read the summary. But let's be serious, if I took the time to write all of this it's probably a pretty good story.
26 of us left from SBU in Bolivar, MO for SIFE regional competition. Because this is a professional, business type organization, we all had our suits packed and ready to wear on Monday.
26 of us left from SBU in Bolivar, MO for SIFE regional competition. Because this is a professional, business type organization, we all had our suits packed and ready to wear on Monday.
That being said, my friend Nathan and I had an idea. It stemmed from what we saw when we first pulled into the hotel: a huge party of some sort happening in a corridor of the hotel. Our idea was simple, spontaneous, and without a hint of actual success expected to happen. Simply, it was to see how much we could get away with while wearing our suits.
So away we went. Strutting through the hotel lobby like we owned the place, looking for anyone who could help us out and point us in the right direction. Along the way, we discovered that the party we saw earlier was actually a book convention that happened to be going on that night. We spotted a group of women who were dressed similarly to the people we saw earlier. Those women also had name tags on, so we felt safe to assume they had been at the convention earlier. With no prep time and just a speck of consideration, we walked over and introduced ourselves.
And so it began. We explained that we were also there for the book convention but we didn't receive our name tags, and we were wondering where we could get them. The nice lady to respond to us explained that the name tags weren't important, but it's the day passes that you need. She then went on to say that we needed to go downstairs and talk to so-and-so about it. We, of course, acted like we knew exactly who she was talking about and headed that way.
Once downstairs, that's when the magic started to happen. We followed the arrows and found ourselves in the long corridor that we had first seen everyone in when we got there. However, it was almost completely empty now. Thinking our mission had failed, we decided to pull out the never failing fake-texting-to-give-me-a-reason-to-stand-here-but-let's-talk-about-what-to-do-next move. In the process, I overheard a women say something about an after party. Needless to say, we followed her as she entered the side door of this humongous ballroom.
And that's when the party started. We later found out that there were around 500 people in this room. And for now, they (about 95% of them were middle-aged women) were seated around tables drinking and talking. Not fitting in at all, we laid low for a while and debated our next move. We mingled here and there with folks of the book culture until it dawned on us that we are in no way capable of keeping up an intelligent conversation with books as the main subject. And it was then that I had my greatest idea of the night.
We decided to tell people that Nathan's mom is actually a writer, and we are just here to fill her spot because she is sick. This turned out to work better than we ever could have imagined. Not only did everyone believe us, but it allowed us to justify our ignorance of all things literature. The next part of the story has to do with our first confrontation of the night.
One of the main event planners came up to us and asked us who we were and what we were doing there. After our foolproof explanation (including that we lost our day passes), she was very nice and explained she needed to double check with her boss just in case. While we were waiting, somehow things we hadn't seen before all of the sudden became visible once The Electric Slide somehow came over the loudspeakers. There was a dance floor, a DJ, and plenty of good times to be had in our near future.
It was at that time that the lady came back over ready to offer a deal. She explained, "I talked to my boss and he said you guys can stay under one condition... if you get out there and dance!" That's all we needed to hear. The next hour and a half was a blur of middle-aged women, dancing, laughing, and life-of-the-partying.
The highlights:
It was a crazy night, and we had a ton of fun. One of the best parts about this story is that we later found out that this wasn't just some normal book convention. This was a certain one specializing in romantic, love novels. Let's just say, that explained A LOT. Also, the guys we saw, most of them I later found out were cover models. It's too bad we didn't know that at the time... if we would've played our cards right, I could be on the cover of a book right now instead of typing out this blog that hardly anyone will read. But hey, who am I to complain?
So away we went. Strutting through the hotel lobby like we owned the place, looking for anyone who could help us out and point us in the right direction. Along the way, we discovered that the party we saw earlier was actually a book convention that happened to be going on that night. We spotted a group of women who were dressed similarly to the people we saw earlier. Those women also had name tags on, so we felt safe to assume they had been at the convention earlier. With no prep time and just a speck of consideration, we walked over and introduced ourselves.
And so it began. We explained that we were also there for the book convention but we didn't receive our name tags, and we were wondering where we could get them. The nice lady to respond to us explained that the name tags weren't important, but it's the day passes that you need. She then went on to say that we needed to go downstairs and talk to so-and-so about it. We, of course, acted like we knew exactly who she was talking about and headed that way.
Once downstairs, that's when the magic started to happen. We followed the arrows and found ourselves in the long corridor that we had first seen everyone in when we got there. However, it was almost completely empty now. Thinking our mission had failed, we decided to pull out the never failing fake-texting-to-give-me-a-reason-to-stand-here-but-let's-talk-about-what-to-do-next move. In the process, I overheard a women say something about an after party. Needless to say, we followed her as she entered the side door of this humongous ballroom.
And that's when the party started. We later found out that there were around 500 people in this room. And for now, they (about 95% of them were middle-aged women) were seated around tables drinking and talking. Not fitting in at all, we laid low for a while and debated our next move. We mingled here and there with folks of the book culture until it dawned on us that we are in no way capable of keeping up an intelligent conversation with books as the main subject. And it was then that I had my greatest idea of the night.
We decided to tell people that Nathan's mom is actually a writer, and we are just here to fill her spot because she is sick. This turned out to work better than we ever could have imagined. Not only did everyone believe us, but it allowed us to justify our ignorance of all things literature. The next part of the story has to do with our first confrontation of the night.
One of the main event planners came up to us and asked us who we were and what we were doing there. After our foolproof explanation (including that we lost our day passes), she was very nice and explained she needed to double check with her boss just in case. While we were waiting, somehow things we hadn't seen before all of the sudden became visible once The Electric Slide somehow came over the loudspeakers. There was a dance floor, a DJ, and plenty of good times to be had in our near future.
It was at that time that the lady came back over ready to offer a deal. She explained, "I talked to my boss and he said you guys can stay under one condition... if you get out there and dance!" That's all we needed to hear. The next hour and a half was a blur of middle-aged women, dancing, laughing, and life-of-the-partying.
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| Nathan, Tara (the event planner), and I |
The highlights:
- Nathan had his shirt unbuttoned by a certain female that wasn't too shy showing her affection.
- I received a plentiful supply of shoulder rubs and whistles throughout the night.
- The few guys that were there collectively decided to make up for the lack of Y chromosomes at the convention with their dancing. And by dancing, I mean hip thrusts.
- At one point, Nathan and I were on the stage together dancing to Thriller.
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| I don't have to point out where the two college guys are in the jungle of middle aged women I suppose |
It was a crazy night, and we had a ton of fun. One of the best parts about this story is that we later found out that this wasn't just some normal book convention. This was a certain one specializing in romantic, love novels. Let's just say, that explained A LOT. Also, the guys we saw, most of them I later found out were cover models. It's too bad we didn't know that at the time... if we would've played our cards right, I could be on the cover of a book right now instead of typing out this blog that hardly anyone will read. But hey, who am I to complain?
Summary:
My friend Nathan and I cleverly snuck into a romantic novel book convention. We told people that his Mom was a writer and that we were just filling her spot since she was sick. We danced for well over and hour and were even on stage at one point. We were the life of the party and also happened to be part of the 5% male population as well as the 3% 20-and-under population. Making us a one of a kind hit that night.
