Coatpocalypse

This weekend was slightly ridiculous.

On Saturday, I tried to go see a Brazilian drumming/Ethopian funk band/stationary marching band concert, except the plan failed horribly when we arrived and I realized I did not have my id. Although it was 18 and up, they wouldn't let us in, and since I can't pull the "O, but I'm a dumb gringa" flirtation trick anymore, we ended up having to go back to Tufts.

Then, yesterday, afternoon, I got a rather frantic phone call from BUILD, the sustainable development group I went to Guatemala with (OOOO- I should blog about us eventually!!!!) asking if I would be willing to help out with a coat check that we had just found out we needed to do for a Gala to celebrate the 25th anniversity of the EPIIC program, which is run by the umbrella organization that also funds BUILD. Funny story, but we had actually run a horrible coat check last year during Tufts' Winter Bash event, which was literally the worst night of my life since it involved literally 100s of drunk girls rushing at us, trying to find misplaced "black pea coats" and "black northfaces." ANYWAY, 30 minutes or so later, homework and fear of coat checking be damned, I was dressed in an eccentric cocktail dress and headed downtown. 4 of us arrived at the hotel where the event was being held right at 6, which just so happened to be the same exact time as the guests were arriving. On finally finding the racks for the coats, we were informed that THERE WERE NO HANGERS AND TAGS. Apparently, these are customary items to bring with you when you run a coat check. Hotels do not even own hangers, we were told. An interesting development....Without tags, we had to resort to ripping pieces of looseleaf. It was pretty bad, especially once a line built up and we had to make up a system as we went along, and then spent 3 hours fixing the non-functional system.

While it was not the best evening ever, I realized something really unexpected. When the wealthy IGL donor types/important dignitaries had to come in to find their coats because we couldn't, if they knocked a coat off the rack, they would just leave it on the ground. Or they would just throw their paper slips on the ground or the counter or wherever. I realized: I don't ever want to be "too important" to pick up a fallen coat. And maybe I shouldn't have been picking up papers off the ground, but I don't ever want to be the kind of person who thinks its perfectly fine to make extra work for a janitor likely working for minimum wage.

I want to live with unobtrusive dignity. And if its at the expense of getting ahead, I think I'm ok with that.