Why He Doesn't Let Me Out Of The House

Last weekend, my husband invited me to a community fund-raising auction for our local Rotary Club. His community organization is trying to raise funds to build a facility nearby and the proceeds of the auction were to partly benefit his organization. He likes to drag me along occasionally to these things for the mountains of entertainment I provide. Unlike him, I do not have an incentive to act appropriately and be socially conscious at these things because, well, it's not MY job at stake and I don't know these people.

His organization had an entire table at this function. People at the table included board members, constituents and one of his supervisors. We were BY FAR the youngest people there (I was so excited to have an excuse to buy a semi-formal cocktail dress and actually WEAR it!). I'd say we looked really classy- a big change from our usual sweat pants. Although, my husband has a problem wearing ties. He goes to http://www.howtotieatie.com/ and follows their picture tutorial but his tie knots still ended up being as big as a grown man's fist!

Anyway, so I had a grand ol' time chatting it up with the couple on either side of us. They were seasoned auction attendees and gave me all kinds of nice hints about how to win auction items. After two glasses of wine, I made a very loud anouncement to our table that I wanted to win item number 07- "Firefighter for a Day." I told the table I didn't have any real fires that needed to be put out but I wouldn't mind having a hunky fireman to look at. They laughed and my husband laughed along (very) nervously. Turns out, there wasn't a fireman for auction- the item actually involved BEING a firefighter for a day not HAVING a firefighter for a day- oopsy.

I shared my passions for firefighters, dry wine and horse back riding with the man and his wife seated next to me. I cracked jokes about my husband's funny looking ties and laughed at the auctioneer's crazy ability to talk fast.

Eventually a handcrafted wooden rocking horse came up for bid. I told my husband we had to get it for our son. He made me set a limit as to how high I would bid- seeing as how we aren't really rolling in the dough right now. It turns out someone else wanted that rocking horse too. We ended up in a bidding war with that person. To my husband's horror, I went way above my limit and eventually bid $500 for it. As the price escalated, my husband snatched the bid card from my drunken hands and sat on it.

That didn't stop me, as the auctioneer was calling "going once, going twice..." I reach frantically between my husband's legs and tries to pry the bidcard from under his crotch. The crowd was going wild. The auctioneer announced "someone distract him!" and people started clapping as I evetualy wrestled the card from my husband and lifted it high into the air in time to make an offer of $600. The other biddder (probably a distinguished Rotary Club member- yikes) offered $650 and my husband once again snatched the card away from me. I had a mini tantrum but I realized he was right and there was no way we could afford a $700 rocking horse.

No matter how tipsy I was at the time, I still cannot shake the image of the display we made in from of the local Rotary Club and friends. Me in my conservative cocktail dress trying to pry a bid card from between my husband's firmly closed legs. Then engaging in a tug of war fit for a toddler between his grasp and mine. Oh well, it couldn't have been too bad because by the end of the night I somehow managed an invitation to go to Vegas with some lady for her daughter's 21st birthday (wait, who was that and what just happened???).

Overall, I had a great time and my husband assured me he didn't think we did too much damage. Although, it turns out that the people sitting at our table weren't JUST board members, the guy I was talking to all night is the CEO of a local bank (and my dad, who works for our city is currently negotiating a real estate contract with him). Oh well, at least he will always remember me, even if he only remembers me as the drunken lush with a thing for firefighters.