Sayonara, Dignity.

The best way to come back down to earth a notch is to make a complete arse of oneself in front of the very society you try to pretentiously emulate. Interestingly, the gods decided to favour (or torture) me with the experience last night. Lets just put it this way... it'll be some time before I show my face in Colombo 7 public again.

The BF and I decided to hit El Cinnamon Grande last evening to try out the Japanese food promo going on, which is part of the bigger World Spice Festival taking place in Colombo. For about the past year now, I've developed myself a nice little craving for Jap cuisine, and poor BF has been my guinea pig for experimenting by visiting restaurants and trying out the stuff with. With Jap food being quite an expensive dining experience in Sri Lanka, I was more than excited when I learnt of the Cinnamon Grand having this 'all-you-can-eat' promo for a reasonable price. And so, the guinea pig and I took a chance on it.

The promotion itself was very well executed, with Jap chefs flown in from... well... Japan... and a delectable array of authentic fare on offer. The hotel had taken it one step further and gone to the lengths of creating the ambience to match the food, and it all came together to create quite the experience.

But that's not what this blog is about. This blog is dedicated to one of the many things fate and my addle-minded body is cuelly capable of when it comes to me.

Before I go on, please note that I took great pains to dress 'Japanesey' last night... sifting through my wardrobe clutter to find the perfect cherry blossom (well, they LOOKED like cherry blossoms) outfit and wrestle my hair into a style worthy of high-society dining. Had I known what I was in for, I might as well have worn my oldest pyjamas.

Anyways, we go to the Cinnamon Grand, me feeling posh and hoity toity and all, and went into the promo area. Spying a couple of local celebrities and posher relatives around, I immediately did that detestable female thing and started to strut around and be 'in' with the crowd. You know... stupid things like flicking my hair all over the place, strutting on heels that were hurting my hamstring and pouting like Marylin Monroe. BF couldn't care less, of course... being the completely unpretentious creature that he is. He was more interested in making faces at the octopus balls on display.

So there I was, preening and parading like a cherry blossom peacock, getting BF to serve hold my plates so that I could serve even more stuff and overload our table, since it would be SO not done to and 'goday' to keep going back to the buffet too many times. I took just about everything there was, with the exception of the octopus and boiled algae (yuck), wagged my ass back to our table and laid it all out in the most fashionable way, all the while giving snooty looks at the rest of the diners.

And then...

And then I tipped the table on myself.

Yes. Exactly. I stepped on some goddamn shaky table base, held on to the edge of the table to sit my heeled and unbalanced (in many ways) self down, and brought the entire table down at myself, Japanese cuisine and all.

The next thing I knew, there was boiling hot Miso soup drenching my pants, and pieces of raw tuna splattered all over my cherry blossoms, with some wasabi and soy sauce for added effect. Not only that, I had also managed to fling the crockery onto the floor, and a loud crash and smash confirmed that I'd shattered some.

All this at the table for two situated next to the entrance of the place, which meant EVERYBODY saw me. Nice going, Dramaqueen.

There was quite a long bit of stunned silence from the diners and I swear the Colombo 7 ladies were dying to snigger fashionably. it wasn't just a few pieces of food... the ENTIRE TABLE was all over the floor, and more entertainingly, all over me.

I must say BF should be given an award for his ability to move into action with Road Runner reflexes. Why shouldn't he have... he's been through this plenty of times before, and is an old pro at girlfriend disaster recovery. While I stood there looking a wide-eyed and complete mess, he calmly helped the waiters to start cleaning up and transferred the remains to another table whilst instructing me to go to the washroom and clean myself up, without so much as batting an eyelid or sighing like he used to do back when my clumsiness was still new to him. I know he was dying to laugh out loud, because it was almost expected to, and COULD only have happened to me.

The restaurant manager pointed the way to the washrooms. True to myself, I just HAD to rush into the wrong one, and end up staring at a man who'd (thankfully) just concluded peeing. For a moment, both of us wondered what the fuck the other was doing in that toilet, until he came out of his shock and indignantly informed me that the ladies was next door.

Try guessing how loud, long and repetitive my scream of "F***!!!?!!!?!?!" was, once I found my way to the right bathroom.

I tried to use a wet face towel and wash off the soup and fish combo that had by now trailed right down my outfit, making it look like I'd purged beancurd. However, all I did was make it ten times worse, because I ended up with patches of wet trouser that gave out the 'just-peed-alot' look. SO, yours truly used her creative skill, and decided to wet the WHOLE outfit, in the hopes that a uniform wetness would trick the viewing eye. Dumbass.

BF raised a questioning eyebrow at me when I walked back to the table, red-faced and drenched from head to toe in my new wet-look, but didn't say a word. Neither did anyone else, but that was sheer fear of making too much noise with their laughter. Not a sound was uttered by my tolerant better half about the catastrophe, right through the rest of the evening... not even when I mentioned that my new look was soaking the plush Cinnamon Grand chair I was sitting on. He was extremely gentlemanly, and even went back to the buffet four times over on my behalf (self-inflicted disasters make me hungry), so as to save me further embarrasement. I apologized profusely to the hotel management, and offered to pay for the dishes I'd broken, but they were very nice about it all, and even offered me a t-shirt to wear (which I declined, because, of course, it didn't look Japanesey).

The rest of the evening was fairly non-destructive, and we polished off quite a bit of food. We even felt adventurous enough to try out stuff I used to balk at before, and I have to admit, it wasn't half bad. BF even succeeded putting a smile on my humiliated face by making a smiley face out of the dessert he served for me.

Oh... and Anarkali was there.

But this blog isn't about her either.