Here’s a little secret—I went because I knew that there would be at least a couple people there that I already knew. Regardless, I went. The space was beautiful—an old sewing machine company with huge open ceilings and wooden floors that still had pieces of needles embedded in them from long ago. The people, of course were talented and ridiculously friendly. The two principles didn’t hide in their offices but instead mingled with everyone there, laughing and joking and giving a great presentation of their company.

In the center of the office is a large prep area with cutting mats, templates, and what every good company should have—a Wii. This prep area shares the room with a really nice kitchenette. For the Design Hood there were several bottles of wine, beer, pop, and a nice spread of finger foods. One of the items in the spread were slices of prosciutto. Not wanting to fix myself a plate, I sort of awkwardly folded and stabbed a piece of the meat onto a toothpick. Then came the tricky part—how to eat it without looking like a savage. Which was not an easy task. The first bite I took sort of pulled and with came more than I was trying to eat. Like a spaghetti noodle. Which we all know is a terrible first date—or in the company of strangers—kind of food. So that was a bit awkward. A few more strategically placed bites and I realized there was no lady-like way to eat this. So I shoved the rest of the piece into my mouth.

Big mistake.

As soon as I started chewing I had flashbacks of my ill-fated experience with a cold scallop appetizer at a bridal fair many years ago. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience and I had to figure out a way to discretely get it out of my mouth and into the nearest waste receptacle. The problem with the prosciutto wasn’t that it tasted bad, it was that there was way too much fat on it and I just couldn’t chew it up. Not without gagging at least. The bigger problem was that I was in a room full of people, the napkins were at least five feet from where I was standing and I had no idea how I was going to pull this off non-chalantly.

So I did my best to not look at anybody or gag as I navigated my way through the crowd to the stack of napkins. Next I did a sort of simultaneous turn and swoop move to get the meat out of my mouth and just hoped that nobody realized what was going on. I stuffed the napkin in my now empty cup—oh how I wish there would have been another swig of wine in that cup—and tossed it into the trash. Then I told the guy next to me not to try the proscuitto.