The evening program was planned to be a simple one: There was an invited speaker from the States, who was supposed to share his experience in a brief presentation of half an hour; the dinner was after the talk.
The disaster began when the host forgot to bring a computer for the presentation.
They tried to borrow one from the venue (which was supposed to be a business center), but there was none for hire.
One of the hosts contacted a friend in office at a distance of a 10-minute walk, and it took half an hour before a small lap-top appeared - only to discover that it could not be logged on without an appropriate fingerprint.
Another audience appeared late and brought with him a computer - but it was an Apple and therefore not compatible.
The group of extra-terrestrials remained chaotic for an hour or so; I continued to wonder how Winston Churchill delivered his talks before Powerpoint was invented.
The dinner finally began by 9:40 PM. I left without saying goodbye as soon as I took the appetizer - so that I would not fell hypoglycemic on my way home. As Churchill once said, a gentleman is a man who would not be rude unless he intentionally does so.
PS. After we got married for over six years, Vivian had never heard so much colourful vocabulary from me.
The extra-terresterials were really serious about this meeting... because I can see that they were directly organizing it without deputizing to their subordinates.
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