“I can beat that,” I tell my friend, laughing too loud even for the too loud cafe. We’ve been entertaining each other with funny and funny-because-they’re-sad stories from work. I know my next story will win the undeclared competition: “My boss came up to me at a Christmas party and honked my boobs.”
I can tell I have her attention by the abrupt silence and wide eyes. “A guy?” she asks me, I think already knowing the answer.
“Nope,” I tell her. “It was a woman.” And I smile and pause. “She was very very drunk, but that’s what she did. She came up to me and, well, honked my boobs.”
“What did you do?” she asks me, her tone a mixture of disbelief and disgust.
“She realized what she did and apologized. And I moved away from her quickly. If it had been a guy I might have made a bigger deal about it. I wasn’t actually sure what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to react. It wasn’t sexual, but it was inappropriate.” I sigh and add, “It didn’t help that I was completely sober. I thought my face was going to burst into flames I turned so red with embarrassment. And I couldn’t even hide behind a nice buzz.”
My friend and I talk a bit, marveling at the awkward situation I just told her about … and she’d been the first person to hear that story, except of course for the dozen or so people who actually saw the boob-honking happen. And now, all of you.
“I should have realized then and there that our working relationship was doomed, when she honked my boobs and thought a laughing drunken apology would wipe the slate clean. Because, really, how do you get past something like that?”
And, of course, I win the worst-story-from-work contest we’ve got going. But, in this case, I really don’t think that’s a good thing.
