I'll Take Embarassing Moments for $200

Last year, the magazine for which I work celebrated a huge milestone in magazine publishing, selling 2,000 advertising pages in one year. Since magazines close advertising and editing about three months in advance, we realized our accomplishment in October and celebrated accordingly. Two words: Tequila and Margaritas.

The entire office had a delicioso Mexican meal at a popular New York City restaurant. A pomegranate margarita was put into my hands as I walked into our private room and as quickly as I finished it, a fresh glass was given to me. Before I could dig into the tortilla chips and guacamole at my table, we did a round of tequila shots (and I love good tequila). Several margarita's later, I was d-r-u-n-k, drunk! No big deal though, our ad director (who happened to attend the same college as WG2 and I, which means she can drink) was getting sloppy.

Lunch cleared, co-workers with family and trains to catch headed home. I, along with a few other assistants, the ad director and associate publisher, headed to the bar. Two Corona's later, I told the associate publisher that he owed me $200. Yes, I was that drunk.

Why did I think that he owed me $200, you ask? Well, let me tell you...

I've mentioned before that I interned for a summer at my current workplace. That summer, as an incentive for the team to work hard, said associate publisher told everyone that if they sold a certain amount of advertising pages, the entire team would receive a $200 gift card to any advertiser in the magazine. I believe his exact words were "everyone! salespeople, interns, marketing, everyone!" As an intern, who wasn't getting paid, I was pretty excited to receive a gift card to pretty much any place I wanted.

A few weeks later, the art intern and I were asked to put together plagues that were made for everyone's desk that said their name and the advertiser they chose for their gift card. I can't wait to put mine on my desk, I thought. Then, it dawned on me, no one ever asked me what advertiser I wanted a gift card from. We put together all the plaques and placed them on everyone's desk. I didn't get one and I was bummed. I thought I got over it. But apparently, I was holding a bit of a grudge.

"Associate Publisher," I said. "You know that you owe me $200, right"

"Uh, no." He was definitely not as drunk as me. I filled him in and he joked, "Oh, OK, I'll work on that."

I still have my job, so it seems that I wasn't completely out of line, but now I know better than to drink and tell important people they owe me money.

Oh, and you're probably wondering...I didn't get the $200.