Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July! Every year, Sunshine's company has a large and formal Independence Day party. It's a "representational event" engineered to facilitate community networking while, incidentally, showing off what kind of swell parties the USA throws. In many ways, it's the most important shindig of the year in terms of international relations, so these parties are pretty much an extension of Sunshine's workday. I'm invited to go along, of course. I always imagine how fun it might be--a gala event!--but I also imagine the tedium of meeting hundreds of incidental salesmen and other American Chamber of Commerce expatriates. I always begin to regret telling Sunshine I'll accompany her as the day of the party nears. It's no skin off her nose, really: she isn't allowed to talk to me or anyone else she already knows during this do--her job is to mingle. The bosses are pretty strict about this. If I didn't go along, her night would probably actually be easier. But I feel bad about saying I'll do something and then not going through with it; so, on the afternoon of the event, I always dust off my suit, polish my shoes, and put on a tie. That was yesterday afternoon this year, and this half-dreaded, half-exciting gala event was much larger and sweller than the one I attended in Monterrey. I don't think I've ever been in a room with so many chandeliers. I've certainly never seen a four-tiered chocolate fondue fountain, a white chocolate White House as big as a three-person tent, or an Old Glory cake the size of a double bed. There were something like seventeen hundred salesmen in attendance, meeting one another over tables set with never-ending supplies of sushi and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was pretty spectacular. [Cavin]