Saturday night girls’ din! Hashtag yay! Hashtag reunion! Hashtag OMG!
These things normally go smoothly, with plenty of pictorial evidence to back all claims of yummy food, lots of laughs, and everlasting BFF love.
Normally, I don’t have Invisalign.
I recently made the bold economic move to realign my previously aligned bottom teeth. (Who wears retainers in college?) (Hashtag monetary fail.) (Hashtag I’m done hashtagging. Promise.)
I’ve only had these sheer trays of straightness for about 3 weeks, but I’ve sort of adopted a dignity-rule: If I know I will be eating out with friends, I leave my Invisalign at home.
The problems start when there are multiple events slash locations stacked in a single evening. I lose focus. I forget about this foreign plastic object adhered to my lower row of chompers.
When this happens, it’s generally okay. (I’m saying this after less than a month of treatment, btw.) I wait until a moment of intense conversation to bow my head and awkwardly pop the sucker out and slip it into a napkin, delicately sliding said napkin next to my purse for safe keeping.
Saturday night, I did this. All night long, a crumpled napkin sat next to my clutch, carefully disguising my dental apparatus. Not one of my tablemates was any the wiser.
As dishes were cleared and credit cards lay flung atop each other in the black envelope-y thing, I decided to run to the restroom.
Less than 5 minutes later, I returned to the table.
Something was awry.
My napkin. My napkin had disappeared.
…
F*ck.
…
Whatever peak my cool factor had almost theoretically reached during the course of the evening, plummeted immediately to dorkdom, as I hailed the closest busboy and filled him in on the…situation.
He informed our server, and soon enough, 4 members of Eveleigh’s overly gracious staff had flashlights out, checking the ground, as others searched through the napkins in the kitchen.
I am never getting invited back.
As I began to fear the worst, our server reappeared, extending my teeth-mold on a napkin, albeit, with a caveat: “Don’t put this anywhere near your mouth until it receives some intense sanitation.” (More gist. Less verbatim.)
Apparently, someone had decided to toss the contents of the napkin into the trash can. It was on the top of the pile, they assured me, but still definitely lay within the confines of disgustingness.
I have to look really pretty the next time I go back there.
That probably shouldn’t be for awhile.