Champagne Tastes, Naturally

I had a taste of the princess-esque life, last night. My friend and future sister-in-law, D, is a brilliant and extremely successful attorney. She's had about 10 hours of sleep in the last three days, often working until 3:00 a.m. to finish projects, but they do throw money at her to keep her there. Last night was a great example. Her firm hosted a Ladies night. At Neiman Marcus. And she could invite whomever she wanted. And she decided to invite me, mostly because I begged her to.

The firm sent me a lovely invitation, along with a valet parking voucher, and I nestled my extremely dirty and dented Honda Civic between a Mercedes SUV and some fancy convertible all, "Hi, I've arrived!"

I meandered to the second level of Neimans, where it was red roped off for our event, got my nametag with my name in some fancy script, and proceeded directly to the bar. Someone said something about free alcohol. Well. Don't mind if I do!

A lovely tall gentleman refilled my glass several times during the evening, so I didn't even have to move, and I sat around chatting with all of these extremely gorgeous, put-together, powerful women thinking, "I sure wish I didn't wear my sweater with the hole in it...."

Eventually we were guided to chairs that were set up in front of a display of pretty, sparkly things. I couldn't distinguish what was actually up there, seeing as how my eyes were swimming in little pools of chardonnay at this point, but I did manage to keep from spilling my wine on my little gift bag, which included cashmere gloves. (EEEE!)

Some beautiful women from Neimans came out to do a talk on "unique gift ideas" for those people who are hard to shop for. Lovely ideas, but The Funasaurus will not be getting any Armani ties or $400 picture frames anytime soon. And I will definitely not be bringing a cute set of silver bowls as a hostess gift because HOLY COW I don't even spend $250 on my own mother, let alone some random hostess! The $12 bottle of sparkly hair glitter (that was very subtle and not tacky) is definitely on the to-do list, though.

A model paraded some holiday dress ideas, and I was all over this adorable little pink baby doll-ish dress, right up until they were like, "only $2,000! Great deal" and I fainted. Poof.

It made me feel a little better that D and some of her beautiful coworkers also thought the ideas were ridiculously extravagant, but it was fun to daydream about carrying around Sugar in a Juicy Couture pet carrier. (Not Tatum, though. If I know him, he would gnaw his way out of there all, "I travel on my own time, bee-yatch. Pass the kitty treats.")

We sat around sobering up, cleared the place out, and then I drove D home (once the handsome valet had retrieved my car, and even cleaned off the [cracked] windshield because apparently it was too filthy for him to see out of, uh heh heh. Hi.) because she had to get up in five hours for an extremely early flight to somewhere un-fun to take depositions. I slept more last night than she has in the last five days. On the other hand, she can afford the leopard print serving tray. So it's all a trade-off.

As I drove myself home, I called my friend K to talk about the evening. We laughed at the extremeness of it all, and she said, "I don't know. After all's said and done, I don't really think I'd like living like that. I think it would be very dull and meaningless after a while. Don't you agree?"

And I said, "No. It would be awesome. Sign me up."

Unfortunately, I doubt Herr MWOTH is going to hook me up with a fat raise, anytime soon. And for anyone who is curious, Herr My Way or the Highway is my evil boss, whom I introduced here.

But if any of you need some quirky, fun, overpriced presents this holiday season, I know just THE PLACE to send you. Happy waaaay-too-early holidays!