A night to remember??

Last night I hosted our school's staff Christmas party.
I planned for everything.
I made sure there was plenty of room for all the food that everyone was bringing.
I made sure I gathered all the dust bunnies and sent them packing.
I thought I had dusted every nook and cranny. (I found a spot this morning that I missed~Uggh!~I'm sure others saw it as well.~double Uggh!)
(Yesterday at school everyone gave me a hard time about how they were expecting to see a clean house. ~Ha Ha. I laughed with them. Why wouldn't my house be clean?~Maybe they have seen my desk...)

The time came for everyone to start arriving. My friend Laura and her husband had arrived a little early to help out. I immediately put Laura to work making the brownies she hadn't made yet...(yeah...we had some sort of deal worked out there.)

As other people started to arrive, I repeatedly had to clarify that "No. This isn't my boyfriend and/or husband. This is Laura's husband, Bill. You have all met him before." (Thanks Bill for having a good sense of humor about all that.)

Then suddenly, my house went black.
I can't even remember what I was doing at the time. I think I might have been finding tongs to serve meat with. All I know is I was completely embarrassed. (Thankfully the blackness of night was a good cover for the red blushing across my face.) "Oh this is a quick fix. Sorry everyone. "

Yet, it wasn't. I unflipped and reflipped every breaker.
Nothing.
I called the electric company.
Can I tell you how much I hate automated systems?
There are times when you need to go hysterical on someone and have a human response.
This was one of those times.

I still had guests arriving.
Some of them actually went into my neighbor's house because "There wouldn't be a party in the dark house."

Thankfully, I had an over abundance of candles.
(I know as a female, I am supposed to loooove candles. But I don't really...but my ex-husband did. I actually haven't burned a candle since he moved out. )
So, Laura went to work lighting and placing all the candles throughout my house.

Everyone seemed to take the outage in stride. People ate and joked. I heard many times, "If you didn't want to dust...."
Ha. Ha. Funny. Funny.
I, being calm and cool on the outside, was freaking out on the inside.

Finally the electric company called me back.
Electrical Man (EC) - "Ma'am, you have power going to your house."
Me: "No, I don't...I am sitting in the dark."
EC: "Did you try flipping off and on the breakers?"
Me: "yep"
EC: "Even the main breaker?"
Me: "I don't have a main breaker."
EC: "Every house has a main breaker."
He directed me outside my house to the main breaker.
Tadah! Lights! Electricity. YEAH!

That should have ended the excitement chagrin for the night, right?
WRONG.
I couldn't seem to get back into the party spirit.

I tried to quickly make and finish the brownies and dip that were headed to the oven when the power went out. I got cornered by a co-worker who decided to unload on me about her marital problems. Everyone else sat in my living room and laughed and joked.

I joined them (finally) when the contest began.~We had an Ugly Christmas shirt/sweater contest.
I thought for sure I would win...or at least come in second.
I didn't get one vote, not even a pity vote.
And to make it even worse, I had a fellow teacher ask to have my shirt (if I was going to throw it away)because she actually liked it. (That's way worse than not getting any votes!!!)

I'm telling you - it really was ugly!

~I, mean, check out the picture!~

We had a white elephant gift exchange that produced a bowling ball, edible body gel, amongst other "unwanted" items.

I ended up with a candle....have I mentioned that I'm not all that fond of candles...and yet have an overabundance of them??? Guess I'll add it to my collection for the next blackout.

Overall, everyone said how much fun they had and thanked me for hosting it at my house...so why do I feel like this is a night that I don't want to remember?