Gala.

Miss Carol and me, we had to attend a black tie gala affair to benefit the foundation that does whatever good things for the hospital on Saturday night.

I always feel spotlighted at these kinda things. Like a big turd. Like I don’t belong. Like at any minute someone will point at my Wal-Mart dress shoes or my JCPenny tux shirt and tie and call me out.

I hate stuff like this like a root canal.

But we had to go.

We were the guests of one of the vendors that Miss Carol works with and there weren’t no gettin’ around it. All week long, I envisioned a huge room full of self important muckedy-mucks clustering in small clusters and talking quietly and importantly to one another while a string quartet played annoyingly quiet music in the background and with me wondering how I’d get a second beer without them staring down over their narrow noses at me. You know, with distain?

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

But then again, I’m wrong a lot.

It was a blast.

Sure the bar was closed for fifteen minutes or so during the invocation and the CEO’s speech but other than that? Full time, full throttle party. I didn’t know that men in tux’s and women in beautiful gowns could be that much fun.

It was almost like there were regular folks underneath all that finery.

Who  knew?