“Did you
doze off during that last lecture?”
“Was it
that obvious?”
“I wouldn’t
know – I think we were all unconscious.”
They
surreptitiously glanced around at their fellow conference attendees and saw the
same blinking, bleary-eyed look that they felt on their own faces.
“Want to
take a walk?”
“Please –
my rear end is still napping and needs to wake up.”
The two
women walked out of the conference room and continued on down the hall.
“What’s
that?”
The
spread before another set of conference rooms featured balloons, a buffet
table, and signs pointing to a carnival.
“Looks
like another convention.” She walked
over to a stand and read the poster on it: “State Chapter of Fun-Loving Party
People.”
“That
sounds AMAZING. We should go in.”
“What? We can’t just walk in; we’re not members!”
“No one
will know! It looks like they’re not
doing registration anymore, and we have badges that can make us pass as members
if we just flip them over!” She did so
to demonstrate her point. “Anything is
better than sitting through another two hours of pedantry, and this is a
real-live party.”
“I don’t
know – ”
“I do!”
She
grabbed her colleague’s hand and dragged her to the other set of conference
rooms, dumping their vendor logo-emblazoned swag bags on the way. The main conference room was filled with
people and dim lighting, which made the insinuation of their non-member selves into
the affair all the easier.
“Perfect –
we can sneak in like it’s a rave,” the instigator whispered.
“If you
say so,” her companion whispered back.
She felt as if her association’s seal was stamped on her forehead,
advertising her deception.
Once
their eyes adjusted to the black light, they could see that the conference rooms
had games of chance and actual amusement park rides spread throughout. Overlooking the enormous power drain, the two
infiltrators circulated the room, ate some popcorn and cotton candy, and rode
on the mini-roller coaster. They had
started with “Fool the Guesser” when the main doors burst open,
letting in too much of the hallway light for everyone’s pupils to handle.
“You!” The silhouetted figure pointed at the two undercover
attendees. Everything fun ground to a
halt and everyone else started at the strangers in their midst. “You left our conference before all the
sessions were done!”
“Yeah,
well, the speakers on the line-up are all dull, dull, dull!” The instigator felt the need to point out.
“Your
lecture’s up next!”
“Right. Just give
everyone the two credits, with my blessing.”
“That’s
not how it works!”
“Oooh, I
don’t want to talk about my topic! It’s as
boring as hanging wallpaper!”
“Excuse
me!” A man who appeared to be in charge materialized
next to the two stowaways. “Seeing as
you’ve crashed our party, hand over any uneaten food and go suffer at
your own conference as punishment.”
“But I’ve
just resuscitated my inner child here!”
“Out!”
So the
convention crashers were led back to their proper conference in shame, the
instigator had to present her mind-numbing lecture, during which she nodded off
in mid-sentence, and the Party went on all night long. The crashers vowed to join that organization
no matter what the membership criteria actually entailed – anything to free
themselves from the monotony of their annual conference of the State
Association of Office Drones.
