Survival of the Glibbest

Last night, thanks to my boss's really strange sense of "how to keep employees happy," I found myself at the Britney Spears concert at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

My boss decided a while back that - instead of raises or bonuses - buying a suite at the concert was the best way to make everyone happy to work for him. After all, a short-term, one-night flash-in-the-pan event is *so* much better than extra pay, right?

Well, I came into this week pretty much dreading the concert - as did the people I hang out with at work. (Yes, I'm happy to say that over the past few months I actually have begun to have "people" I hang out with at work, and not just "person.") We plotted ways out of it. We debated what would be worst: the Hummer limo ride there and back, or the concert, or the drunken co-workers, or simply having to go back to work the next day.

I couldn't ride in the limo because I had to come home to walk the dog - a chore for which I have never been happier. But that didn't mean I could avoid the rest of it.

The pizza (from Black Sheep pizza in Minneapolis - SO good) was scheduled to arrive at 4, the limo to arrive at 6, and the opening acts for the concert were to start at 7. That was the plan. But, at 3:30 the limo showed up - because, of course, that was the one piece my boss actually "organized - and so everything was a little up in the air. He threw an extra $150 at the limo (yeah... because he does that kind of thing), and suddenly we had time to eat, but everyone had to eat - and drink - so they could leave by 5.

Of course, this mainly meant that we had something to laugh about as the evening started.

And, well, the evening kind of continued like that. I showed up at the concert (with one passenger who also didn't want to ride in the limo), and we laughed about the people stuck in the bar because the Suite wasn't available when they got there. Then we laughed about the food and drinks in the Suite and the fact that no one could get the bottle opener to work. (Although... the shredded Buffalo Chicken sandwiches with blue cheese slaw were no laughing matter.)

We laughed about being unable to hear ourselves think during the opening acts, and we laughed about the 45-minute intermission before Britney started. And, yes, we laughed our way through her set, too.

Oh, and we laughed nervously as we watched the fetish-y, bondage-y stuff happening on the stage and the backdrop screens, thinking about the little kids in the audience.

And, thankfully, it was eventually over. Now we can laugh about it as a "Do you remember when we...?" topic.

We laughed. We survived.

That's life.