Thankful for the Freedom to Embarrass Myself at Cornhole

Clayton and I spent Memorial Day weekend acting brilliantly normal and pretending like we had friends after we got invited to/stood close enough to people talking about a barbecue.

I was so excited to actually spend time with people other than my husband and dog (love you boys!) I laid my clothes out 16 hours in advance and planned Sunday down to the second in schoolgirlish anticipation. It was sweetly frightening, even to me, and had anyone remotely connected to this b-b-q witnessed this behavioral health emergency, I’m sure they would have moved the shindig to a secret location and offered their house to my husband as a neutral spot to host the much-needed intervention. But instead, I put my chillaxed face on just in time and no one was the wiser.

Besides my utterly poor showing at cornhole—after numerous mentions of Cornhole Domination: Memorial Day 2010—the day went rather well. Heat stroke + Corona eased the social anxiety from not having spent time outside my house in about eight months, and flip cup was a nostalgic little reminder of what life could have been like as an undergrad had I not been brainwashed by 13 years of private school to avoid any person or situation that could possibly involve non-Christian radio stations, tobacco, cursing or shorts above fingertip length.

Towards the end, when we really should have left about two hours earlier but were afraid we’d wake up from this friend-filled dream of social normalcy, I found myself in a not exactly sober (the other dude, not me…I think) negotiation regarding my freelance rates and what it would cost for a marriage-saving email to Totally Just Met You’s wife after some anticipated future screw up. I’m no expert here, but don’t you think if your marriage is on the line, it’s really not the time to haggle? It’s kind of like his wife was about to be hit by a semi truck and instead of grabbing the poor woman and flinging her from the road, he calls the driver’s cell phone and debates what speed wouldn’t actually kill her, just maybe seriously injure her with a resulting 6-8 weeks of rehab. Because that’s love, baby.

Regardless, I think that’s what they call networking, kids. (Except when I lost all motivation to continue the conversation and said, “I can write an email for free in ten minutes.” Business skillz: lacking.)

Hope you had just as much fun and a little less cheese dip.