Buttering My Bread

I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing incidents thanks to hidden cameras.

Take our trip to Newport last December. You may recall mention of a certain naked poolside dance, and the subsequent discovery of a camera aimed in that exact spot hours later. What are the odds of being caught in another compromising position by another hidden camera nine months later?

This time I blame the missus.

We were at the Friday night event during my work symposium last week. Kicking back, drinking, enjoying the entertainment, and chatting with others. Now, keep in mind the fact that we are still newlyweds. Ergo, we are sometimes on the frisky side, and tend to have trouble keeping our hands off each other. Literally. And that’s putting it delicately, since my parents read this blog. In fact, from now on, I’m just going to say she was “buttering my bread” whenever I refer to the act of not keeping her hands off me literally. Got it? Cool.

So, at one point, Tara reached over and started buttering my bread.
“Whoa, now,” I said, glancing around the crowded room nervously. “You’re buttering my bread in public!”
“But I like buttering your bread,” she answered.
“And I enjoy having my bread buttered,” I replied. “But it’s best to butter bread in the privacy of one’s home.”
“Don’t worry. Nobody is paying attention to your bread or my butter. Besides, it’s dark. We’re completely safe.”

She was right. It was dark, there was lots going on, and nobody was looking in our direction. Nobody, that is, but the coworker with the camera pointed directly at us at the exact moment said bread was being buttered. Of course, neither of us knew this, until I returned to work yesterday. An email from our admin said, Hey, everyone – if you have photos from the summit, please save them on our shared drive. 

“Ooh, cool!” I said to myself. “Pictures!” And I began virtually thumbing through hundreds of uploaded photographs from the symposium. Imagine my surprise when I came across a shot from Friday evening’s event. To my utter dismay, there was Tara, caught in the act of buttering my bread.

Gulp.

Now, to the average onlooker, it may appear that nothing amiss is taking place. You’d have to know what was going on to know that anything was going on. It’s not overtly obvious that bread is being buttered. To the casual observer, she’s just resting her hand on my knee. I could plead that in a court of law and the jury would find me not guilty. The lighting is dim, the evidence inconclusive. Enough reasonable doubt exists to assert that no bread was being buttered in the photograph.

Only, she and I know otherwise.

I was going to share the photo here, but I’d rather not have the whole world take a gander at my buttered bread. That’s private stuff, meant for me and Tara only. And 26 of my closest coworkers.

And Heidi.

This was actually the second embarrassing incident related to the conference. A day earlier, I had posted a link from TIME Magazine listing “10 Things To Do In Portland, Oregon” on my company’s Facebook page, which I happen to manage. It was intended to be a helpful guide for any of our members who were staying in town afterwards and looking for fun activities in the Rose City. Many of the usual tourist haunts were listed:  Voodoo Doughnut, Powell’s Books, and Forest Park all made the cut.

Half an hour after posting the link, my boss came racing over to my cubicle.

“Hey, Mark,” he said. “Loved the Facebook post, but I had to take it down because of #9.”
“Refresh my memory?” I asked.
“Strip clubs,” he said. “#9 on the list was ‘visit a strip club.'”
“Oh. Ahh. Err. Oops,” I stammered. “Well, it was only up there for 30 minutes. I doubt anybody even saw it.”
“One of our members left a comment that said, ‘whoo-hoo, #9!'” he replied disapprovingly.

Greeeat. To make matters worse, throughout the event, my boss insists attendees were coming up to him and going, “Loved #9!” I thought he was pulling my leg, but he swears this happened. I think that’s hilarious. And to be honest, it’s not a very big deal, at least in my opinion. Portland IS synonymous with strip clubs. There are more per capita here than anywhere else in the country. I might have accidentally stumbled into one or two myself over the years. And this was a respectable national publication. It’s not like the story was overly graphic. Hell, they talked about the Acropolis, which is just as well known for their $7 ribeye steaks as for their T&A. Still, I suppose in the interest of not offending anybody, it’s best to keep that sort of thing separate from work.

Then again, whoo-hoo, #9! doesn’t appear to have been uttered by somebody offended by the post.

Now that I’ve (once again) shared an embarrassing incident, feel free to tell me one of yours!