Pie in the face a sign of respect – I think!
The gang at explore must really like me. How do I know that? They pied me at the end of their Adventure and Travel show in Toronto last weekend! It must be an Irish thing, but my father always taught me that being humiliated in front of a crowd by your colleagues as whip-cream goo bubbles out of your nostrils means that you are highly respected. Honest. That’s what he taught me.
I never saw it coming, though. The staff lured me in by singing an innocent happy birthday song at the end of my last presentation. I gave twelve presentations in total, so I was slightly burned out at the time and not thinking straight. And they used that to their advantage. They even had a nice cake with only three candles (I was turning 47). How nice. But then, just as I was about to give a big thank you and hug someone, mild-mannered James Little, [former] chief editor of explore, snuck up from behind and slammed the pie into my face.
They were pleasant enough about it. The Explore gang even had a face towel stolen from someone’s hotel room ready to wipe my glasses clean. That was polite; especially when Heather walked through the moderate crowd I presented to and quietly asked them to stick around after my show to watch me get whip-cream goo all over my face. I guess if you’re getting ridiculed, you might as well have an audience. If not, it’s just a waste of pie.
Seriously, I was actually honored by the act of being pied by explore. After all, they didn’t pie any of the other speakers: Les Stroud, Ray Zahab or Ryan Stuart. These guys might have been famous television celebrates, world explorers and gear gurus — but I was the only person with whip-cream all over my face at the end of their show. That’s real special.
Oh ya, and by the way James, it doesn’t matter how much you apologize and say it was all Sharon’s idea — you were the one who slammed the pie in my face and you are the first I’ll get even with. Expect it when you least expect it. You’ve been warned. Or you can give me the job of writing the next cover story of explore and we can call it even. You choose.
