So the other night with that basic premise in mind I attended one of those mandatory meetings for entrepreneurs grubbing for money in the Silicon Valley. Excuse me while I digress. I think I read in a paper recently that every third person in the South Bay area either is in the process of starting a company or dreams of doing so one day. Hell, the other day my Taco Bell cashier was pitching me up for investment in his IC (Integrated Circuit) company idea while I waited for my Burrito Supreme. We couldn’t agree on valuation so I changed my order to ‘to go’ and skedaddled out of there.

Anyway, the meeting took place in what we affectionately call the ‘Death Star’, (Black Hole might be more appropriate as many an entrepreneur goes in but nary a few come out with their shirts on their backs), the most famous Valley law firm at their sprawling Palo Alto campus. After giving my name and confirming my registration I headed upstairs to join the pre-meeting festivities.

Being a veteran of many campaigns, I knew the secret to effective networking was to be strategically seated and well fed and lubricated – and since this event sponsor was particularly cheap – get to the food and alcohol quickly before it disappeared. I dodged a mine field of glad-handers and smile-effers and put my jacket on the first seat in the front row and then made a bee line to the food.

Trouble. Silver trays arrayed on tables piled high with deep fried gunk that they tried to pass off as ‘Chinese food’. Unfortunately I had not eaten lunch and was thus famished so against my better judgment I ate a heapin helping of some gelid dumplings of congealed fat. This was California, dammit. Land of bean sprouts and healthy food.

What, were they trying to kill us? Harden our arteries on the spot? Cull the entrepreneur herd? I half expected to open the last tray and find triple nicotine cigarettes and heroin needles.

So I settled into a birds nest corner with a glass of wine in one hand and another two placed at arms length. Up walked a thin wiry man with intelligent eyes and a wispy mustache. He introduced himself as Yuri in a thick Russian accent. As he worked his way through his pitch I felt the warm embrace of the wine come over me. I said “Yuri.”

“Vhat?”
“I once had a girlfriend in Japan named Yuri but you look nothing like her.”
“Ves, people are always mistaking me for Japanese or Brazilian bikini models as Yuri is also popuuular name in Brazil.”

I shuttered as I imagined him in a bikini needing more wine.
So I almost imperceptibly and deftly switched my empty glass for the full one in mid sentence.

He resumed his pitch and droned on about algorithms and saving the world when I became aware of a young Chinese-looking girl standing in front of us obviously intent on joining our conversation. Slightly impaired by the wine, I strained to determine whether it was more impolite to break into Yuri’s pitch yet again or leave the poor girl standing there in the cold.

It’s the Southern in me, I guess. Thinking ’she’s darn cute,’ I extended my hand in introduction. She said her name was Christine and while she tried to hide it, it became apparent to me she was the main squeeze of one of the mega-zillionaire speakers.

Thereupon we were all called into the meeting room to begin. The subject was ‘can you successfully fund your start-up on less than one million dollars’. The panel consisted of two VCs and two entrepreneurs. I won’t bore you with the details of the meeting. In short, the entrepreneurs said the VCs were greedy bastards and the VCs, ever slick, said they were not. The VCs then said “We love you entrepreneurs and want to have your children.” They meant it like ‘lets get it on’ but in reality what they meant was ‘we’ll take your first born as collateral on you company’.

In the middle of the debate my stomach began to growl. Not a polite, little, rumbly-in-my-tumbly growl but a real live cross-between-a-bear-and-a-lion growl. I shushed it like I would a wanton child but much like the child, my stomach would not stop. As queasy as I felt I was equally determined to make it to the end and the ritual exchanging of the cards and the perfunctory ’send me your business plan and we’ll do lunch’ comment.

Now besides queasy, I had become somewhat disoriented. When it ended, being in the front row, I stumbled up and took my rightful place at the head of the line, the room spinning and my stomach yelling at me to run.

“No,” I yelled back in my mind, I have to complete my mission. As I reached out to exchange cards with the alpha VC a wretch in my stomach brought out all of its contents as I projectile vomited congealed fat and red wine on the floor splattering his shoes and pants. The room stopped spinning for an instance of stunned silence.

After feeble attempts to apologize and clean up the fetid mess, I slinked out of the room a mixture of embarrassment and misery. Come to think of it, I did, however, in the end, get his splattered business card.

Have you ever encountered a more embarrassing situation?

Should I email him and request a lunch meeting or not?

The week prior to that fateful train trip we were nestled around a circular table of a ritzy hotel restaurant high above the Shanghai skyline. Around the dais sat my friend Dave, his girlfriend, his Japanese godmother, my mom and me.

An outbreak of Hepatitis A raged in the streets below, apparently ignited by a rogue shellfish some days earlier. I could be wrong but I could have sworn I saw crustacean wanted posters dotting the city. For the uninitiated, Hep A spreads like wildfire, mostly through improper food handling. The Chinese government had practically locked down the entire city. Food stands and most low-end restaurants were shuttered. And it seemed as if banks were being robbed right and left as everyone wore suspicious white face masks.

Being the self appointed expert, I took the liberty of ordering a pot of Jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, for everyone. I then haughtily went about explaining the proper technique for eating these scrumptious delights properly.
“First step is to grab your bowl just like so.”
I poured a smidge of soy sauce into my square bowl.
“Not too much, not too little.”
“Dip in just like so … and eat.”

Everyone fired silent darts at my condescending and typically long-winded explanation as they were hungry after a long day of sightseeing. When the dumplings arrived, they soy sauced up their respective bowls and dove into them with gusto. Just then the waiter came up and with a look of sheer horror blurted out,
“You are all eating out of the ashtrays!”

Everybody simultaneously barfed up their partially digested dumplings. My face beeted red. The waiter immediately changed out our ashtrays for proper dipping bowls. I tried to make light of the situation,
“Look on the bright side. At least by using ashtrays we were significantly cutting down our risk of contracting Hep A!”

So tell me, what’s your most embarrassing moment?

© 2008 Bluntwit.com

The wellspring of my guilt occurred in the yingwo, or hard sleeper section, of a 35 hour train trip from Beijing to Hong Kong some years ago. I was traveling with my mother who had decided to visit China for the very first time and take advantage of the fact that her eldest son had been studying there for a year. He neglected to tell her he still couldn’t use chopsticks or even fly a kite properly.

Ah, and for the uninitiated, the accommodations on the train to Hell are more comfortable than your average yingwo.

Anyway, when we arrived at our assigned cubby hole there were folks huddled around the single fold down table puffing furiously on unfiltered cigarettes.

Ok my memory might be playing tricks on me. Let’s try again.

Anyway these two smokers barely noticed us through the haze as we piled into the upper bunks on either side. The shorter of the two wore black and sort of glared at the world through the shifty eyes of a possible serial killer. The other one had that dull stare of an unwitting accomplice. Together they scared me.

Once the train had pulled away the two men redoubled their smoking. My Mom, clearly in agony, looked across at me and said, “Tell them to stop smoking. I can’t breathe. And if you don’t, I WILL.” (Not that she could, as she only spoke the sliverest of Chinese and they didn’t speak even a wink of English).

Now I had a quandary. I had lived in China for a while and had various run-ins with these lawless types, impervious to any of the decorum that keeps a normal, polite society from falling to pieces. They would sooner kill you as spit on you. And there was the whole ‘face’ issue. You must never, ever cause such ruffians to lose face. So I wavered. And my mother suffered and seethed. She again threatened to take matters into her own hand when suddenly it came to me!

“Cough,” I said to her, “Loudly and often.”
She looked perplexed so I repeated my entreaty with maniac zeal.
“Cough. Cough. Cough.” She hacked.

I approached them nervously. I noticed the smaller man’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers as he took a long, lazy drag.
“I apologize in advance,” I said in Chinese, “but the woman here is my mother and she has been afflicted with a bad case of Tuberculosis and your cigarette smoke is inflaming her raw, gnarled lungs.”

At that both men’s eyes grew wide with fright as they extinguished their cigarettes and rushed off to find a safer locale. Thus, we enjoyed the entire trip in relative smoke-free seclusion. My mother asked me what I said to them and I told her that I had simply asked politely that they not smoke as it bothered her.

To this day I have not confessed the fact I afflicted her with such a malevolent, spur-of-the-moment imaginary disease. I thought putting the story out there and confessing in the relative anonymity of the blogosphere would start the healing process. Sorry Mom.

Do you have any deep, dark secrets you to want to own up to and assuage your conflicted conscious?