THERE ARE PARTIES AND THERE ARE PARTIES

I don’t know why Mrs. Taser decided to host the wives tea the same day as the annual dinner dance, but she did. It meant not only an afternoon, but also an evening of faculty/student togetherness.

By now, I had been through the tea drill many times and arrived at the appointed hour---as did everyone else. Mrs. Taser asked me to keep an eye on the concoction in the punch bowl and told me, “The lime sherbet is in the freezer, and there’s a pitcher of punch already prepared in the refrigerator. It will be your job to refill the bowl.” “Yes,” I replied. “I can do that.” I figured that if I stood guard over the punch, I wouldn’t actually have to consume any of it. After all, I was ordered to watch it, not to drink it.

About 30 minutes later, I noticed that the green stuff had melted and the punch bowl was about half full, so I dumped the rest of the sherbet into the bowl and then opened the refrigerator to get the pitcher of punch. However, when I opened    the door, I saw that there was not only one pitcher of punch in the refrigerator--- there were two!

Before I could figure out which one to add to the bowl, Mrs. Taser yelled, “Bring in the punch!” So, I grabbed the pitcher in front, dumped the mixture into the bowl, and stirred it about. No sooner had I finished, than the wife of the president of the university made a beeline for the punchbowl poured herself a glass, sipped, gulped and said, “I go to a lot of these functions, but without a doubt, this is the best punch I have ever tasted. Pour me another one dear.”

By the fourth glass she went from “dear” to “dearie.” How was I to know that Mrs. Taser kept a pitcher of vodka in her refrigerator? Mrs. Taser could do nothing, but give me the evil eye, since the president’s wife was smitten with the punch. At that point, I was happy that Professor Taser was no longer my husband’s major professor. He wasn’t even on his doctoral committee, so the damage was minimal. However, I did offer to drive the president’s wife home. On the way, I promised I would sing the school song with her as long as she buckled her seat belt. Luckily, the lady had a wooden leg and we both survived the experience.

I got home just in time to change clothes for the social event of the year: the student faculty dinner dance. We arrived a bit late because W.S. had washed his good shirt and he had to finish drying it with my hairdryer. He dropped me off, and while he was looking for a parking place, I slipped into the room stood in the corner and took in the scene.

A card table was set up and four professors were already into a game of bridge. It was definitely a contact sport, because if looks could kill Professor Chi would have died on the spot. I don’t know why the other three even bothered to play with him since he, a world famous statistician, usually won. Every dinner dance, these four men would sit and play bridge, because that way they didn’t have to dance with their wives, eat the food, or (best of all) talk to their students. The bar tender was a student from Utah. I feared he might not graduate when I saw him plop a maraschino cherry into the dean’s martini.

W.S. walked in just as the music stopped and Professor Taser took to the podium, musical instrument in hand. He played a pretty mean banjo. After basking in the applause, Taser stepped down, and “The Graduate Men and Then Some” stepped up for a barbershop quartet rendition of “Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You?”  The “Graduate Men” were Rocky, Bubba, Barry and Snarky, and Velma was the “And Then Some.” She sang the “Will I Ever Tell You?” part. Turns out that Velma, the Jersey girl, sang sweeter than she answered the phone.

W.S. enjoyed dancing about as much as a root canal, but he managed to push me around the dance floor a couple of times repeating over and over, “This is such a long song.” It annoyed me when he rested his chin on the top of my head, so I suggested that we mosey over and sit down with Jude and Tuesday. Tuesday was almost nine months pregnant, so she wasn’t exactly sitting; it was more of a sprawl.

 W.S. said, “What are you both up to?” And, that’s when the adventure began.

Esther Blumenfeld, CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006