On a Bender with Bestest Friend/CoWorker

Saturday, July 30, 2005
Tuesday afternoon I drove to State College, PA for the Pennsylvania Recycling Convention. Bestest Friend/Coworker showed up about 20 minutes after I arrived. Here are the highlights:

Tuesday
We checked in and put our booth together. Amazing how easy it was when there were actually 2 people working together – instead of just me by myself.
Watched part of Jersey Girl. Not at all what I expected from a Kevin Smith movie. Ben Affleck is not as bad an actor as people say.
Bestest Friend/Coworker and I went to the hotel bar for a pre-dinner drink. They had Yuengling on tap. Awesome. We both had a couple and bitched about work for a while. Then we went off our diets and got nachos. NACHOS.

Wednesday
BFCW and I got breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Discussed waxing and fake tanning.
We went to the conference to work our booth. The organizers of the event placed our booth directly across from one of our competitors. We sat there and gave him dirty looks all morning and badmouthed his product to anyone that mentioned it.
BFCW ran into some people who work at a company she interned at. Seem like fun guys.
While I was totally making stuff up and lying about our product, BFCW contradicted me in front of the sucker I was talking to. I hate her.
A skinny, very tan, extremely stupid journalism student interviewed us for the school paper. She was wearing a tiny tank top and with her belly showing. After talking to me and BFCW for about 15 minutes she asked our names, which we both gave. She wrote down BFCW’s name, then turned to BFCW and said “and what was HER name?” and pointed at me. I hate her. And her fake tan.
BFCW said Loosey Goosey. Hee!
BFCW tried to tell me the lyrics to the new Missy Elliot song, which I said are the same as the song from The Muppets Take Manhattan. Which we then sang. Because we knew all the words. Sad, I know.
Free beer before dinner.
Dinner was pretty good for conference food.
Hospitality suite in the hotel for FREE BEER. We started talking to a little leprechaun, a lobbyist, and 2 college kids. The college kids left early (amazing with all the free beer around.) The leprechaun divided his time between us and another group. The lobbyist pontificated at us for hours. The more he drank, the bigger the lies he told.
Whoppers told by lobbyist –
He owns a swinging penthouse bachelor pad in Georgetown.
A “friend” (whose name he wouldn’t say because we’d all know who it was) called him up last week and told him to be at a certain restaurant (which he also wouldn’t name) because Brad and Angelina were dining there.
He is good friends with a certain Nascar driver ("Matty, yeah he's a good kid.")
He’s leading a team of investors that will be introducing a new hangover product to the market in 6-8 months.
Last month he dated a Victoria’s Secret model but broke it off because she wasn’t interested in politics.
Whatever.
A very loud woman with a deep smoker's voice sat down next to BFCW and they start waxing poetic about a mutual acquaintance named Irm. "IRM!!!!"
BFCW gave an impromptu speech at 2am about the melting properties of various plastics.
3 am Everyone got kicked out of hospitality suite and went to bed. Lobbyist invited us to drink in his room, but we declined.

Thursday
Drank entire 2 liter bottle of water before breakfast. BFCW got many weird looks by combining ice cubes and the hot water for tea to make ice water.
Checked my email and find that A. had sent 15 emails regarding accounting problems that are all her own fault and half of which I’ve already fixed. I hate her.
Spent most of lunch hour bitching about her before deciding that my new attitude regarding her is "Whatever."
Conference traffic was so slow during the afternoon that BFCW started downloading music to her iPod while I played Bookworm for 2 hours. I got 200,000 points before my library burned down!
Free Beer before dinner.
BBQ dinner that was pretty darn good. Very amusing tablemates.
Tiny man hid in recycling bin to scare unsuspecting conference attendees. Oh those wacky recyclers!
Hospitality suite was reopened to get rid of leftover beer. Our group mocked me when I pulled a paint can opener (free at Lowe's!) from my purse to use to open beer bottles. They stopped laughing when it worked beautifully. They started laughing again 3 hours later when we all realized the bottles were twist-offs.
BFCW volunteered her room as the community bathroom. Moved her stuff to my room for safekeeping.
A VERY Annoyingly Forward Guy started asking me personal questions because he was trying to "be social." Examples - "Where do you live?" "How old are you?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Where did you go to college?" "How much is your mortgage?" I hate him. Tried to ditch him all night but was unsuccessful.
The Boss called BFCW’s cell phone at 11:30, probably hoping to leave a message to avoid talking to her. She answered and did a pretty good job of sounding not-totally drunk. He asked what bars we’d been to (he is a Penn State graduate.) She lied to him and said we went out to a couple of bars on campus but just got back to the hotel.
Thursday night’s bullshit artist claimed to have gone to college in the Hamptons. Said he worked in an exclusive club there as a busboy. Told a bunch of hooey about famous rich people he saw (Paris Hilton, for example) and how much money he would make. Honestly, if he really made that much money, he should have dropped out of college and stayed there.
BFCW asked a Penn State graduate which bars we should say we went to, in case The Boss asks. She called her office phone and left herself a message so she won’t forget.
BFCW and I retired from drinking at 1 am. She left her room to the drinkers and slept in the extra bed in my room. We watched American Wedding for a few minutes before going to sleep.

Friday
Woke up to cell phone message- received alert (cuckoo noise). Timmy wanted me to call him. He left his time sheet at home and wanted to know what time I’d be back. Not til 3. He decided to just go back home and get them so he could get paid. BFCW went back to her room to pack and have a shower.
We checked out of the hotel and drove to the Penn State campus. We parked and walked around a little bit. Bought a pink Penn State baby blanket for CoWorker Whose Wife Just Had A Baby Girl (he’s also a Penn State graudate). We also bought ourselves Penn State tshirts.
Went to sandwich shop/internet café for lunch. I had the best lunch! It had avocado in it. Who knew I liked avocado? Not me!
Listened to inane college students scream about potato chips and who knows what else.
CWWWJHABG called to ask something about work. I told him we went to a bunch of bars the night before but was convincingly vague about them all.
Followed BFCW down highway to Interstate 70, the exit for which she missed because she was talking on her cell phone. She called 5 minutes later going “Where’d you go? Where am I?” Ha!

I got back to the office at 3:30 - just in time to be trained by Yet Another CoWorker Who Is Quitting. That took until 5:30. I never even made it to my own desk. I just decided to go home and worry about work on Monday.

So that’s it! Until the next recycling conference at the end of August in Minneapolis! Bestest Friend/CoWorker and the Infamous A. will both be there with me. Should be great!