Dressing Up Spring

April 9, 2022

By Esther C. Baird (currently in between publication in Boston based newspapers)

Spring clean-ups are happening in the neighborhood which means it’s Delusional Spring in our world.  I try to be optimistic this time of year, but winter was long and cold and a bit of a drag.  This fake, spring-like mode, we all pretend exists to survive March and early April wears me down.

So when I had the opportunity to leave for a week, first to speak at a retreat in Maryland, and then to attend a board meting in Chicago, I took it.  A week of hotel rooms, flying in seats of my own choosing (not the mom-in-the-middle seat) and wearing cute outfits, including business formal, can do wonders for one’s psychological stamina. 

And it was great!  I spoke four times to other women who had escaped, uh, I mean retreated, women who laughed at my jokes.  Who complimented me on my shoes.  Who thought my theological insights were helpful and uplifting.  There was nary an eye roll in sight, nor a non-sequitur request for food after I dropped a giant Biblical truth.  

Then I flew to Chicago and attended formal meetings.  I sat at a boardroom table with leather mats and table tent name cards with my name spelled correctly.  I drank lemon water out of fancy glasses from pitchers stationed precisely at every third seat.  I heard from panelists and professors and financial people all who used big words and graphs implying I was a person who could follow along and have insightful questions.  And I did!  Further, none of my questions included Costco lists or revolved around whether I would mind driving six friends in six different directions between the hours of infinity and eternity.  

The last thing on the agenda was a luncheon to hear a report synthesizing a year long study relevant to our board.  We sat at tables with linen tablecloths, a three course lunch, and all of the corresponding silverware.  I was at the table with the speaker, up front, by the podium.

Our salad was an amazing Cobb with fresh avocados that I hadn’t peeled or cleaned up and we drank our water and coffee out of formal glassware.  Given I had an evening flight home, I accepted coffee as the server made the rounds.  

I sat and ate and listened to the speaker I’d just chatted with. We’d talked about marketing issues and laughed at one of our tablemate’s story.  There had been no mention of missing basketball uniforms or radioactive lunches found in lockers from a month earlier.  No-one discussed the merits of carpet spray versus steam cleaning when the dog threw up.  I felt peaceful and relaxed. I still knew how to move in those circles.  When both of our girls were college in mere years, I would know how to do all this again. 

My coffee was black, so I reached for the creamer and very discreetly poured it, since I didn’t want to be distracting to the speaker who was doing a great job with his graphics and…

Plop. 

I froze.  What was that sound?  Plop. It was coming from… me!!  I looked at my coffee where I was holding the creamer mid-pour and saw it.  

I was pouring salad dressing into my coffee.  

It was a ranch salad dressing, thick and viscous, floating like so many creamy dill caterpillars in my fancy, glass, coffee cup.  Not only did I see it, my whole table saw it.  The table behind me saw it.  Mayhap the whole world as we know it saw me inexplicably confuse coffee creamer with creamy ranch.

A million thoughts flashed through my mind.   All my options in every multiverse unfolded before me.  And then, like any good wave function, they collapsed into the only true option available: I got the giggles. 

“I’m so sorry.” I whispered, laughing, to those around me.  

There was just no recovery.  I couldn’t undo it. There was no Emily Post rule for what to do when you accidentally pour salad dressing into you coffee.  In my defense, the creamer and salad dressing were both in opaque white pitchers but, I noted, none of the other 30 attendees had confused them. 

I kept laughing, helpless really. “Quite clearly that is not the coffee creamer, I’ll just start fresh with a new cup of coffee.  Perhaps one of you could identify the correct creamer pitcher for me.”  

That loosened up the table. And then I snapped a picture of my clumpy coffee next to my table tent name tag.  Because that’s what Esther in jeans and a minivan would do.  That Esther knew if nothing else, it would make a great post on Facebook, and quite obviously, because here we are, a good column.  

It had been a fun week, and fancy grown up Esther still existed, but the worlds were perhaps not that far apart after all.  Which is good to know when I’m cleaning dog messes and fumigating lunch boxes, and waiting for Real Spring to arrive.