Bad Day: #1

When we first got our cat, I packed quickly in the pre-dawn hours for a meeting in Houston. The next day when I went to put on my suit, mere moments before heading to my client’s corporate headquarters, I realized that Stinky had used it as a scratching post. It answered the “How on earth did she get up there?” question I had asked when I saw her on the top shelf of my closet but posed the “How on earth can I be seen in public without making a fool of myself?” question that I’ve been known to ask myself throughout my life.

I took scissors to my suit and cut off the million and one frayed strings hanging from it. Deep breath: everything is going to be okay. Famous last words.

That morning, we entered the boardroom where we were to present. I was the only woman in a room full of men with the exception of my key client who was the lead on this project.

I sat down at the long mahogany table, opened my binder, and in a blindingly fast instant that will forever be seared in my mind, a tampon that had somehow nested itself in my binder edge, came flying out at the speed of light, skyrocketed across the table, hit my client’s chest with a thump and landed in her lap. She didn’t even flinch. I just about died. Inexplicably no one else at the table saw a thing.

It wasn’t until we got into the car to head to dinner that she and I began to laugh so hard we could barely speak. We had suppressed it all day. My coworkers were having a field day. Who notices a pockmarked suit when there are flying tampon diversions? Thank God it made a beeline for her and she handled it so well; otherwise, I think I would have seriously considered never leaving the house again.