Ugh.

On Saturday, Beau and I went out to dinner with some relatives.

We had chicken satay for an appetizer and it was delicious. I ate half of one. It had chili-orange sauce and the chicken was coated in peanuts and rosemary. Yum. I ordered a salad for dinner, which came with slices of steak on it and had raisins, strawberries, peaches, nuts and blue cheese in it. About halfway through this massive salad, I realized that I was full. I was kind of sad, because it was good and kind of expensive. We were on our way somewhere else, so I had no way of taking leftovers. Oh well.

Anyway, after we finished the meal and were waiting to pay, I had what I am calling The Incident. I had a coughing fit. I just kept coughing and coughing into my napkin. I didn't feel like anything was stuck. I didn't want to drink any water because of that whole bandsters rule about not drinking. So I just kept coughing. And coughing. And coughing. I was thinking, hey, maybe I should go to the bathroom because I wonder if I might...

...and then I PB'd into my napkin. Slime with chunks of salad -- sorry, eww, but that's what it was. And it was enough to spurt onto my hand, my shirt and drip down onto my skirt.

I was mortified. Horrified. Name a word that describes complete and utter embarrassment and that's what I was. Everyone pushed their napkins towards me and someone whipped out some tissues. I apologized over and over again. Then I bolted for the bathroom, where I cleaned myself up as best as I could. No hand dryer, of course, so I had to blot with paper towels. Eventually it just looked like I'd spilled water on myself.

As we were going elsewhere, I got Beau to turn up the fan in the car in the hopes I would dry out soon. We got to our next destination and luckily it was dark inside. I was asked if I was OK and I said yes, joked about being embarassed and was told it was "no big deal, don't worry about it." And then it was never mentioned again. I kept checking and within an hour or two it wasn't even noticeable anymore. I felt just fine the rest of the night.

I have never had this happen. I don't know if it's common amongst bandsters. I have slime and PB'd, but I always knew I was stuck -- there's a distinctive feeling -- and I had the time to excuse myself and go to the restroom. Maybe the coughing activated my gag reflex? I definitely should've just left immediately and I know now to do that if I have a coughing fit in public. Maybe I was a little stuck and didn't realize it; it's so easy to do when you're eating with other people and talking. I was trying to take small bites and eat slowly without being too conspicuous. But maybe I wasn't doing well enough. Who knows.

I wonder if they'll ever want to go to dinner with me again. At least it didn't happen while we were still eating...