Walk That Walk

Thanks to Texts From Last Night, I know all about the walk of shame. In my many trips around the sun, I have never had occasion to experience this as either the walker or the walkee. Until now.

I went on a work related conference that included an overnight stay. Normally, this is cause for great celebration because the conference is at one of the nicer hotels around, children are not allowed and it's a mini-vacation from work without the guilt of not being at work since technically it is work. I think there's supposed something about building supervisory capacities and networking with colleagues in there, too, but those are secondary.

One minor drawback to this conference is that the participants are required to share rooms. Since there were three of us my office going, I assumed I would be rooming with one of them, as always. If you are reading this, you are my friend and surely by now know that I don't like people. I don't like being touched. I don't like socializing. I don't like having my "space" invaded. And this is with my friends and people I love. I had been mentally preparing myself for sharing a room with a friend for days and was ready! I could do this!

When the three of us checked in, Nicole and Wanda were given keys to the same room and mine had a different number on it. No, that couldn't be right. That would mean that I was rooming with neither of them. I quickly reasoned out that since I registered for this conference after the deadline, I was in a room by myself. Nicole, utilizing her wealth of social work skills, comforted me with the knowledge that she saw a name on the check in list next to mine. She coolly pulled rank and shot down my plan of sleeping in her car. As always, I offered to spell "insubordination" for her when she wrote me up.

Instead of going up to our dooms, ummm, rooms, we decided to skip the dinner at the hotel. After dinner, we went shopping because that's what women do. Despite posts that may or may not have been made on Facebook regarding the trip, shoe shopping and Hell, I did have a good time. My ability to look at not just shoes, not even a shoe sale but SEVENTY PERCENT OFF SHOES without so much as an inkling of interest pass through my body still astounds many of my friends. Same with purses. One friend had the nerve to text me and tell me to go to the Coach store and sniff the purses. That's just wrong.

We got back to the hotel some time after 9. I felt like I was going to my doom. Walking the 1589 miles from the elevator to the room, I had convinced myself that this was not going to be as bad as I thought and I would survive. I admit that in the eternity between sliding the key card in the slot and waiting on the green light, I prayed a thousand prayers that there was no one in the room. My heart soared with hope when I turned the knob and pushed open the door and broke in to a million shards when I realized the break-in bar was engaged.

My "Honey, I'm home!" was met with a slight yelp and half glimpses of a figure in a very skimpy robe flitting around the room like a hummingbird, picking up things and moving stuff around, including what I am 93% sure was a towel from her bed. I introduced myself and I think she told me her name. Maybe. She was too busy clutching the itty bitty robe closed and making apologies for having her belongings every where. Was it Kim? Diane? My mind kept wanting to remember her name as Mulva. (Damn you, Jerry Seinfeld!)

Kim/Diane (Mulva) flitted to the bathroom and came out in pajamas that she clearly had not been wearing when I got there. We made some awkward small talk for a few minutes about the conference, the oil spill, an embarrassing drug bust from my county that had made the regional news. She arranged for a 6:30 wake up call and told me that she had already bathed so I could have the shower first thing.

What followed was one of the longest, most miserable nights of my life. The air did not work and the temperature only reinforced the feeling of being in Hell. Sleep came in fitful spurts. I would lay awake, heart pounding with anxiety (how am I supposed to sleep with a stranger 4 feet away? Please God, don't let the shrimp etouffee I ate for dinner come back to embarrassingly haunt me.) until I would doze off. After about 15-20 minutes of sweat drenched sleep, I'd wake with a start, convinced that Mulva was standing over me in the dark waiting to, ironically, stab me with a fork. I almost wept with relief when the phone rang at 6:32.

Mulva (Kim? Was it Kim??) shot out of her bad as fast as any bad cliche I could write. Before I could even sit up, she announced that she would brush her teeth and then the bathroom would be all mine. By the time I got out of the shower, it was only 6:55 and she was already fully dressed, packed and ready to go. Huh? Was I such a bad roomie that she had to leave so quickly? I know I snore on occasion but didn't think I had a chance to do any serious log sawing in 15 minute increments.

I was perplexed. How dare she run out on me like that?! I didn't even know her name or what she looked like. I couldn't point her out to Wanda and Nicole. Worse, I couldn't talk about my experience during any of the lectures because I didn't know who her friends/colleagues might be. Every time I saw someone that resembled the blur that was Mulva, I cringed, especially if she was talking to someone else. Was Mulva going around telling people about what a horrible roomie I was? What if I talked in my sleep? Oh lordy! How do people do this to themselves??