Real Teachers, Really

Thursday I had to go present at this state conference for English teachers. I was supposed to go with another colleague; we were presenting a session, but he backed out at the last minute, and my car is still sitting in the school parking lot with a broken ignition cylinder or something, so I rented a car and headed to Tan-Tar-A. Dear God. The presentation went really, really well, and I got to hang out with my favoritist professor of my life, Dr. Barb Price, and then things went horribly, horribly askew. I am saving the unabridged version from my memoirs, but here's a brief rundown of the elements that made the post-presentation convention not unlike a bizzaro dream where you find yourself in your underwear running away from the apocalypse with that girl you haven't seen since grade school. So:

1. Grown-ass man constantly running around with a panda puppet. Was seen in the bar. With the puppet.
2. Found out random Truman student who was there is married to Writer Guy. Those who frequented the Dukum Inn circa 2003-2004 know who I'm talking about.
3. Made two friends from North KC, and we spent the night making fun of:
a. 30-year old teachers wearing mom jeans, 'woo!" ing, dancing the cha-cha-slide, singing Margaritaville, one wearing a t-shirt that said, "Got Dick?"
b. another younger non-teacher, who accosted us in the lobby after the bar closed, circa 2AM, and went into hour-long hysterics, complete with tears and chest pounding, about Jesus, to which I responded by parroting everything she said back like the congregation and holding my hand up and telling her to testify, which she absolutely found normal. She also had a frightening lobster-red tanning-bed sunburn.

Long story short, I woke up with a mean hangover and had to drive back to the Lou with no battery in my iPod.