I want my eggplant, goddammit.

Last night was my company's big annual dinner/dance, and I decided to go -- mostly because my friend Gutu kept badgering me until I said I would. I figured at the very least, it would be some good food, good company and some decent music. I was wrong.

It was a cash bar, and even though I knew that going in, I didn't think a glass of wine and a G&T would cost $12.50. We had planned ahead though, and my wife had a purse full of mini-vodka bottles. That doesn't make me an alcoholic by the way - it just makes me cheap. We stood by the window with our drinks and had sort of a poor man's red carpet view of the people coming in. As we were commenting on various coworkers as they strolled to the front doors, we spotted the Big Boss and his wife. They had flown in from the old home office just for this occasion. To give you an idea of where we sit on the totem pole in relation to him, this is my and Gutu's boss's boss's boss's boss. There may even be one more in there somewhere. I can never tell without an org chart.

For the purposes of this story, we will call him Big Boss, or BB for short. After I spent about fifty bucks at the bar, and passed on all but one of the hors doovers, it was time to go into the dining room and figure out who to sit with. Gutu had a plan, and I backed it -- we would go in first, find a nice table in the back, and then wave over the people we deemed cool enough to join us.

With that plan in hand, we set forth and snagged a nice table. It was far enough away from the DJ's speakers so you could still talk, yet close enough to the dance floor to watch your co-workers do the robot to a country song. As we sat there waiting for the rest of our group to come in, Gutu turns to me and says, "Can you imagine if BB walked in and sat with us?" Ha ha ha we all agreed. Good laugh. I am pretty sure I could rob this guy at gunpoint and he wouldn't recognize me as one of his employees.

Not 30 seconds later, BB and his wife walk up to our table. BB says, "Hi Gutu, are these seats taken?" And Gutu responds in the only way she possibly can. She says, "Yes. Go sit somewhere else." No, unfortunately, I'm kidding. Obviously, she says, "No, BB. Please, sit down."

So they did.

And nobody else did.

As every one of our friends filed into the room, they took one look at who was sitting at our table and literally ran to a different table. So the 6 of us sat at a table for 12. I don't know how he knew Gutu's name, but he did, so this is all her fault, damn her. Damn her to hell. He's a nice guy and all that, but there's a little pressure to be on your best behavior if you know what I mean. In other words, doing shots from my wife's purse probably wouldn't have been in my best interests.

My wife and I also got screwed by the waiter. There were three choices for food: Beef, Fish and Vegetarian. We asked what the vegetarian dish was, and the waiter told us it was roasted eggplant, red peppers, mozzarella and ricotta over pasta and that sounded pretty damned good. "That sounds pretty damned good," we said, and placed our order.

A little while later, after about 30 minutes of polite chit-chat with our boss's boss's boss's (boss's?) boss, our food showed up.

We got pasta. We got Broccoli. And nothing else. No Eggplant. No delicious cheeses of any sort. No roasted red peppers. No goodness at all, damned or otherwise. When the waiter came back, I said, "Dude. What happened? You screwed us." and he said, "Oh yeah. They changed it to 'pasta vegetable medley.' Sorry about that."

You know what? The definition of a "medley" is this: An often jumbled assortment; a mixture. I am here to tell you that two ingredients do not make a medley, or an assortment, or even a mixture.

Since we ate almost nothing, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up a frozen pizza. As I was preheating the oven, I saw this on the front of the box:

I may not know a good way to smuggle a tiny booze bottle out of a woman's purse when I'm sitting at the same table as a guy who could ruin my life with one phone call, but I know a shitty serving suggestion when I see one.