Bee Careful Where You Sit
The restaurant looked horrified. The faces of other patrons at surrounding tables were staring at me, some craning their necks over plants obscuring their view to get a better look.
I attempted to pull down my dress to cover my bare ass as I told the extremely guilty and apologetic waitress that it was fine.
I guess this was pretty par for the course because I have the absolute worst luck at restaurants. I think I’m culinarily cursed or have some bad restaurant karma. Whenever I go to one, dishes are forgotten for an hour or orders are mixed up. I’m always that one person who finds a fun, curly mystery pube gingerly tucked between my fries.
But this night, by far, was the worst.
It was my friend *Jessie’s birthday and she wanted to celebrate with a night out on the town. We planned on dinner, drinks, and dancing, so I made sure to wear my snazziest outfit. I rarely dress up, so it was nice to feel like a put-together human being for once. I wore a tight red dress I’d struggled to squeeze myself into because I’d purchased it when I was ten pounds thinner. It barely covered my ass and kept riding up unless I yanked it back down by the seams that were close to tearing.
At around 8 o’clock in the evening, our group met at an upscale lounge/restaurant in the nice part of town. When we entered, I was stunned. The venue was dimly lit with modern light fixtures, had high ceilings, polished wood and stone, every corner filled with lush green plants, art deco-inspired gold accented furniture, and the piece de resistance—an open-air ceiling, so you could dine while looking up at the stars. This lounge was classy as fuck™.
The venue was packed and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Around us were beautiful couples in designer clothes casually discussing whether or not they should fly to Dubai or Turks & Caicos for vacation, some older gentlemen in suits talking about investments over expensive scotch in fancy glasses served neat, while another group of friends were laughing over their tiny portions of pan seared scallops and trendy cocktails. I felt sheepishly out of place as I checked my bank statement on my phone for the fifth time to make sure I had enough money to pay for drinks.
Our group was worried we’d miss our name being called for the reservation because the crescendo of restaurant chatter and music blaring on the speakers drowned out the hostess’ voice.
“Jessie? Party of five? JESSIE?”
“Hey! Yeah! That’s us!”
The hostess grabbed a few of the perfectly pristine and unwrinkled paper menus and motioned us to follow her. She disappeared into a sea of moving heads with just her slick, blonde ponytail as our guiding totem. We weaved between the bar and the tables down a narrow walkway, bumping into strangers, and after several excuse me’s and sorry coming throughs, we got to our table.
In the most ungraceful fashion, I lurched forward to squeeze into the booth. I put one hand on the table and palmed the other on the backrest of the seat to leverage myself. Ugh. My stupid dress was riding up again so I tried to use one of my hands to yank it down as I sat. Just as I plopped down and made skin contact with the leather seat, I immediately felt like a jolt of sharp pain on my ass cheek like I had just been stabbed by a rose’s thorn.
Me: (screaming) “OW SHIT!!! What the FUCK did I just sit down ON???”
The stinging started spreading quickly and painfully, so I jumped up, accidentally and forcefully bumping the table forward with a loud dragging “EEERRRRRRRRGGGGGTTTTT” sound. It was so dark in our booth because of the damn **~*aMbiAncE*~** lighting that I could barely see what penetrated the soft virgin skin on my white ass cheek. I twisted my torso to look behind me while bunching fabric into my hand, and clumsily groped my derrière to to see if I could at least feel what the hell bit me in the ass. Jessie pulled our her phone and shined her light on me and the booth seat, and there it was: a dying bee straining to crawl away.
I sat on a fucking bee.
“OH MY GOD, THE STINGER IS IN YOUR THIGH!”
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
“MISS, I AM SO SORRY, DO YOU NEED A FIRST AID KIT?”
“SOMEONE GET SOME ICE!”
My friends and the hostess were all talking over each other, trying to flick the bee off the seat and remove the stinger from my ass when I looked up and realized that everyone sitting at the nearby tables was staring. My dress was pulled up past my G-string with a phone flash beaming a bright, white spotlight on my now-red bare ass. While my friends were still concernedly inspecting my butt cheeks up close and personally, the restaurant manager calmly emerged from the chaos.
Restaurant Manager: “Hi there, which one of you ladies was stung by the bee?”
Me: (trying to pull down my skirt) “Hi—yes, that’s me.”
RM: “Are you all right? Are you allergic? Do you need us to call 911?”
Me: “I’m fine. It just kind of stings. I’m not sure if I’m allergic, I’ve never been stung before. I don’t think I need an ambulance or anything.”
RM: “If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.”
Me: “Oof—actually, can I put in my drink order with our server? I’d like a double lychee martini.”
RM: “Um, sure.”
The restaurant manager politely smiled and disappeared back into the crowd of bobbing heads. I sunk into the booth in shame trying not to make eye contact with burning gaze of gawking restaurant patrons. Our server returned moments later and set down my peachy-pink colored cocktail.
“This one’s on the house.”
I picked up the glass, raised it, and then gulped down the booze along the pain, shame, and humiliation. But I mean I got a free $18 drink as consolation so I guess there’s that.
Also I never returned to that restaurant again because everyone saw my bare ass.