How we got disinvited to a private dinner with Nancy Reagan and Sandra Day O'Connor



Steve works at a law firm where his bosses are pretty (ok, extremely) well-connected. They know everybody. Politicos, big-money, you name it. So it didn't seem that strange to us when Steve came home from work one day with two unusual, hobnobby invitations. The first was to his boss' house for a "little party" for the law firm with special guest Governor Janet Napolitano. That's tonight. We're still invited to that and I'll report back on how it goes.

The second invitation was to celebrate the renaming of ASU's College of Law in honor of Sandra Day O'Connor. Steve's boss has some thick ties to ASU, so we figured he must have gotten all his attorneys invited to this "private dinner" with Mrs. Nancy Reagan, the president of ASU, and Justice O'Connor.

"Oh, that's nice," I said, "but we can't bring a baby to a big affair like that. We'll have to decline."

"Well, let me ask around about it first," Steve said. He asked all his colleagues, and no one else had been invited. Not even the ASU alums nor the girl who is in tight with the law school dean. Hmmm. He thought about asking his boss, but worried that perhaps his boss hadn't even been invited, and how would that look? It was becoming clear that this invitation had arrived with Steve's name on it erroneously. And that made us start to think we really wanted to go! What a great story we could tell! "Did you hear about the time we showed up at an intimate dinner affair with Nancy Reagan and Sandra Day O'Connor--with our baby in tow--and security tried to usher us out, but we said, 'Oh no, we were invited!' and sat down to eat while they stared at us blankly."

Steve called the Dean's Office at ASU and explained that he didn't understand why he received this invitation. They asked, "Didn't you clerk for Justice O'Connor?" "Uh, no, that wasn't me." "Isn't your wife's name Betty?" "Negative." "Ohhhh. We're really sorry, but that invitation was intended for someone else with your same name."

And Steve replied indignantly, "Oh, that's interesting. Well, we'd like to RSVP. We'll have the fish."

Comments

Bek said…
AWESOME!!!!!! The funny part would have been if you went and they person pretended like they knew you. I am shocked that they didn't say "if you make a big donation you can still go..."

Have fun w/ the chi-chi political peeps tonight. :-)
October 25, 2006 1:53 PM
Anonymous said…
What's Leo doing hob-nobbing with the democrats? I thought he was a Kyl backer.
October 25, 2006 2:43 PM
Emily said…
Funny story about that, Bek. Tonight at our chi-chi dinner we ran into the dean of the law school. She apologized about the mishap and said, and I kid you not, "There is one way you could get invited to go to the dinner. If you made a big enough donation...."
No joke. I thought of you and laughed very hard (to myself).

Sarah, he accompanied Janet last year on her trip to meet with President Hinckley and tour Temple Square in her effort to reach out to her conservative Mormon constituency, so now they're buddies. That's pretty much what tonight was, too.
October 25, 2006 10:44 PM
Emily said…
P.S. Here is my report:

Norah got her picture taken with the Gov, and I talked to her, only to discover immediately after that I had food in my teeth. Awesome!
October 25, 2006 10:48 PM
Suzie Petunia said…
How funny! Did Norah have milk in her teeth... ok that doesn't make sense. Whoa, I need to go to bed.
October 26, 2006 3:51 AM
Anonymous said…
and where was this swanky event held?
October 26, 2006 8:37 AM
Anonymous said…
being janet-friendly, the boss is prob not in on the plot to get mitt elected pres.
October 26, 2006 5:57 PM
Anonymous said…
Who are you plotting for, Neil?
October 27, 2006 1:23 PM
Anonymous said…
mormon-wise, i'd be all for jeff flake if he'd be more consistent and not do unforgivably idiotic things like voting to allow the president the power to suspend habeas corpus whenever he feels like it. anyway i think "plotting" is what enemy combatants do, and since that piece o' work is now law (holy freakin crap!), i shall sit passively by and let dear leader decide whether we get a bush or a clinton next.
October 27, 2006 6:58 PM
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