oh, did i tell you about thursday?

so let's talk about thursday night. the night of the masquerade party - the party of the year. the party no one should miss. the party to end all parties. well, at least, according to the station's radio ad. no, make that understandably biased radio ad. i have to admit, having been around the biz for a while now, i very little faith in advertising. so i put little stock in this hyped-up event or the one-minuter extolling its would-be greatness. (tidbit: the girl who penned that ad didn't even show up for said shindig! she was, i believe, about 100 kms away!)

so, if i harbored huge doubts regarding little get-together, why did i even deign to go? two words: free food. i must confess the call of a free meal was too hard to resist. i breezed through my last news item, closed the newsroom for the night, and flew to the nearby venue, clutching my comp meal ticket all the while.

sadly, i was too late.

what greeted me was a roomful of people - licking their lips, scratching their bellies and toasting their half-empty bottles of colt. the feast was over! oh wait! is that haagen-dazs i see? perhaps all is not lost! oh but it is! even the haagen-dazs guy was scratching his belly and smoking his after-meal ciggie. not a cup or cone in sight.

what does a girl have to do around here to get her meal comped?

high point: saw old college friend. he claimed to "listen all the time". he was, in his words, "a big fan". he said i "looked good". one, two, three lies in less than a minute of schmoozing. i have to admit - i didn't mind.

low point: some ick guy gave me "the eye". let me recount the incident: i felt a hand on my shoulder, so i automatically whipped around, a happy "hey!" on my lips, fully expecting an old friend, a colleague or a so-so acquaintance. (i was voted "friendliest", you know.) but it was this guy, this stranger (he defies description). then he walked away in a slow-mo-yet-real-time manner, muttering "hey" under his breath, never breaking eye contact. eew! i stood there like a pillar of saltwater taffy, glued to the spot by his sheer ickness! double eew! me and rollster (who witnessed my close encounter with the ick kind) exchanged incredulous looks, then burst out laughing. i then asked rollster to put his arm around me in hopes of warding off any more evil spirits, but he just wouldn't. the bastard. (the moral of this story? stop dating gone-half-the-time hotties.)

the mask that caught my eye: one that had "free kobe" written across it. funny.

the big event I failed to see (darn it): a colleague fell off the stage, drunk as a skunk. i always miss the good stuff.

epilogue: cousin saw how distressed i was over the lost (free meal) opportunity and sprung for late dinner at a japanese restaurant. tamago don and oshinko maki for me. i love my cousin.