Off to the ballet we were — three of us. A Saturday matinee and a girls’ afternoon afterward.
Heading out of my home, I had grabbed the purse that went best with my outfit, made sure my basics were in there — wallet, keys and cell phone — and off I went, first picking up one friend, then the second, so we could all arrive together.
As we went through security, the bag check and a metal detector (not sure why anyone is concerned about guns at a ballet, but whatever), I was about to join the first of us who had gone through security when I got stopped.
“Ma’am, you can’t bring a bottle of water into the theatre. You can go outside, dump it and come back in.”
I called out to the friend who had already passed through security and to the other friend in the line next to mine, “Ladies, we have a situation,” I said, as I motioned them to come with me quickly.
“What? What? What’s going on?” they asked.
“I wasn’t paying attention when I grabbed my purse this morning, and I have a small water bottle with some tequila in it, Patron Silver, to be exact.” (I’d brought it with me when meeting someone for drinks the week prior, as I have a hard time wrapping my mind around $16, plus tax, plus tip for a shot of Patron, let alone two, and had wanted to give myself a pre-bar shot.) “I can’t bring it in, and I’m not about to dump it.”
“So, it’s shots then?” one friend ventured.
“It is,” I responded.
One of our party looked at the other two like we were crazy and said, “I can’t do shots before noon, but I’ll take a small sip for the team.”
We walked 10 yards or so to a not-yet-open restaurant’s outdoor patio area, and did a couple quick rounds of sips and swallows; after all, we didn’t want to be late, for our very important date.
Mission accomplished, I tucked the now-empty bottle in my purse, went through security again and we were off to see the ballet. It was Alice, a lovely adaptation of the Alice in Wonderland story by the Washington Ballet.
