Several years ago I was "between opportunities" in the work force and I ended up working in the development office of the campus where I attended grade school and high school. For a brief and shining few months, I was drawing two paychecks, though I cannot account for a dime of either of them going to anything fiscally useful like savings or the Visa bill. Anyway, it's a long story, but I spent several months asking people with obscene amounts of money to give some to us, and they did. Actually, the whole experience redefined my perception of money and the extent to which I have none. Who knew that in fund raising circles that $10,000 is a "small" gift?

The process of asking people with money to fork some over ususally involves throwing them a lunch. Here in the South, lunch for the well-to-do set is very important. It can be an event, often a fundraiser, where one sees and is seen by other important people, or it can be a gathering of friends at the "right" place in town that will assure you a mention in the society column of the paper. No matter the occasion, it usually involves chicken and hired help to serve it to you. When it came to these lunches where I worked, I was part of the hired help that had to acquire, plate, serve and clean up so the boss could schmooze with the "ladies who lunch" crowd. It required a major attitude adjustment on my part, since, during these events, I was treated as a servant by my boss (who was actually a friend of mine) which was awkward, since I often knew the people I was serving. The boss part is another story for another time, though.

Anyway, there was one advantage to the endless catering to the "ladies who lunch" crowd: we, the hired help, ate well. That's actually where I acquired my affinity for expensive chicken salad. There's also a phenomenon around these parts known as tea punch. All good chicken salad should be accompanied by tea punch, and it was the official drink of our workplace. And, boy, do I know my tea punch. Every eating establishment prone to tea punch does it a little differently, but it is essentially iced tea made with a fruit juice such as orange juice, lemonade or pineapple juice. Often we were assigned to get food at one place and tea punch at another just to get the combination right.

My point? Not much of one, but I just needed some way to introduce the fact that I'm in a bad mood because it's conference call day, so I stopped on the way into work and bought a half gallon of tea punch. You'll know me when you see me because I am the one running down the hall to the bathroom every 10 minutes. If my potty nemesis even thinks about going in there before me, there's gonna be trouble.