Mortifying Moment of the Day

Dramatic recreation.

When it comes to coordination, I like to think of myself as having cat-like reflexes, but the simple truth is that I have the dexterity of an antiquated robot, and that, my friends, is not always a good thing. Take for example what happened to me about thirty minutes ago. I was up at The Standard Hotel, sitting poolside with my friend Anna David and her friend Vanessa Grigoriadis. The banter was flying fast and furious. Both women are fantastically smart, and as they're both journalists (Anna's written for The New York Times; Vanessa for Rolling Stone, etc. etc.), they're very well-read on most topics. I, however, have forgotten what it's like to read — I like to blame Los Angeles because it's easier than shining a spotlight on my own lazy, reality-TV-watching ass — so I was doing my best to sound smart and worthy of such brilliant company.

Well, the conversation eventually headed into politico land, and Vanessa revealed that she's actually writing a New York Magazine piece on Barack and Michelle Obama. Pretty cool. We began to chat and chat, and then I don't know what happened, but suddenly, my hand somehow lurched forward, bumping into my tall glass of what was supposed to be an iced mocha latté (but was in fact some other drink, thanks to the incompetent wait staff). The pint glass teetered back and forth, and I tried to stabilize it with my oversized paws, but remember that coordination thing I talked about? Yeah, I was pretty much like the Lost in Space robot flailing its arms and bleating, "Warning! Warning!" Needless to say, my attempts to prevent a major coffee accident were unsuccessful. If anything, I probably made the situation worse. The glass ultimately flopped over, and out poured what looked like five gallons of NOT my drink. And where did the sudden onslaught of liquid all land? On Vanessa's PDA. That's right. I spilled my beverage on a reporter's Blackberry, a device which contains thousands of very important contacts. Like, writing-a-New-York-Magazine-piece-on-the-Obamas important. Oops.

As you can imagine, there was a mad dash to get the PDA out of harm's way, and somehow Vanessa managed to save the damn thing before any sort of horrendous technical failure set in. Still, I was massively rattled and embarrassed (not to mention flummoxed that I had waited thirty minutes for the stupid drink, only to knock it over immediately). Not my finest moment. I blame Obamamania.