Last Tuesday I was invited to a get-together with some people I work with. The host is our team lead and told us he would be making home-made pizzas. I was excited to hear this because I have a large collection of hot sauces (around 130 different bottles, not including the big name brands). As you might guess it’s hard to rotate through so many hot sauces by myself and I always relish the opportunity to show them off and explain the stories behind them.
Prior to arriving at the party I stopped at my house and prepared the bottles for transport. I have a metal attaché case I picked up from goodwill that I’ve fitted with a foam liner that will accommodate about 30 bottles. I made my selection based on which ones go best with traditional pizza toppings and made my way to the host’s house.
When I arrived I was taken aback slightly as all of my co-workers brought their significant others, and while I expected the host’s wife to be there I was not made aware that we were allowed to bring our own guests, and being the only single male in attendance I felt a little out of place. The host asks me what’s in the briefcase and I explained that it was a hot sauce collection for us to sample and he snickered a bit, as if he didn’t believe me. I opened the case to show him and he rolled his eyes and laughed. He then rudely asked me to “just put it somewhere in the kitchen” and goes back to making small talk about sports and other uninteresting topics.
Dinner time rolls around, and the host sets out two large pizzas on stones that he claims to have “made himself” but I saw the pre-mixed dough bag in his trash earlier. They look decent enough, one is sausage and mushroom and the other is peppers, olive and onion. He also has pathetically set out a bottle of Cholula and a bottle of Tabasco. As the line starts to form I fetch my case and set it at the end of the counter. The host seemed to get annoyed and said there wasn’t enough room for my sauce collection.