Blind Prophecy

First full day in Washington and it’s all about the bags.

I must confess that I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred in a handbag, whether it have handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life which reminds one of the worst excesses of the French revolution, and I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?
– The Importance of Being Ernest

I started my day by heading down to my favorite DC location, Cosi, for breakfast. Okay, it may not actually be my favorite location, just the one I’ve spent most time in. This was one of two trips outside my hotel for the entire week.

What queer fella doesn’t know how important it is to choose the right bag for any outfit? Well, too bad, bitches, because we’re giving you a one-size-hits-all boring canvas tote. I hated these bags and I helped stuff and store 2,000 of them today.

The sponsor goodies were entertaining. Everything from mints to orange sunglasses, mini commemorative sport shoes to pedometers. Although one sponsor thought it was a good idea to give away bottled water. I’m sure it was good idea if you forget the fact that we’re piling 2,000 stuffed bags on top of each other in the coat check room – causing many to rupture and leak all over the papers inside.

Last year it was vaccuum-sealed bags of rice cakes. Under pressure, those things popped open like cheap silicon breasts implanted by the guy who lives next to the crack house downtown.

Anywho, it was rather hard work. Although we had a team of volunteers, it was staff who did the heavy lifting. I mean that literally. The volunteers would stuff the bags and toss them into large laundry bins. When the bins were full (70-80 bags), staff members like myself would push them across the exhibition hall, through a meeting room, into the staff service area, up an elevator, out of the staff service area, and around two corners to the registration area, where we could then unload them just in time to get back downstairs before the next bin was ready to go. Ah, the glamorous life of a nonprofit whore… no job too filthy, no project beneath us, no task to repetative…

After finishing the bag stuffing (but not before trying, once again, to get everything done for media that our ED wanted done), we had a staff dinner around the corner from the hotel. This was the second of my two trips outside the hotel for the week.

That was pretty much it for the day. I headed back to my room and got online to check email, prep our daily bulletins and figure out a few last projects.

Filed under: DC, work by Jere Keys