How To Attend Your First Grown-Up Party

1. Receive an invitation from a coworker to attend her jewelry/housewarming party this coming weekend. Accept immediately.

2. Panic because this is an actual grown-up party.

3. Focus. Remember you are new here and that you aren’t in any position to be turning down invitations or friends.

4. Tell your coworker you are bringing an appetizer and ask what her favorite wine is.

5. Go to the store for wine and ingredients for your appetizer. Don’t panic when every person in the Bangor area is at this specific store.

6. Stand in the wine aisle for at least ten minutes trying to decide on a bottle of wine. Choose one that’s on sale and grab the ingredients for sausage balls.

7. Go home and spend the afternoon relaxing.

8. Listen to your sister’s “Going Out” Spotify playlist while you are preparing the sausage balls. Feel like you are pre-gaming for a college party instead of a housewarming one. Search for a more appropriate playlist.

9. Panic because the sausage balls are taking longer to cook than the recipe says.

10. Throw on a black shirt, dark jeans and boots. This looks adult, right?

11. Grab your sausage balls out of the oven. Look at the clock, see that it’s already six, and realize you are running late.

12. Run around your apartment like a madwoman because your coworker is texting and asking where you are. Text your coworker that you’re on the way.

13. Drive like a crazy person to your coworker’s house. Breathe a sigh of relief when someone pulls in after you.

14. Walk in the side door like you see other guests do. Realize you just walked in to the middle of a large group of girls hanging out in the kitchen. Feel your heart race. Hear the introvert inside you scream. Run.

15. Set down your appetizer and feel slightly embarrassed that it doesn’t look as pretty and put together as the others. Think to yourself that maybe it is a mistake not to have a Pinterest account.

16. Accept a glass of homemade sangria from the only other girl you know at this party. Don’t think twice about swallowing it in one sip.

17. Pour yourself another glass when no one is looking. Give your coworker the bottle of wine you brought. Feel a slight twinge of horror when you see that two other people gifted the same. exact. bottle. Silently curse the grocery store for having such a good sale.

18. Drink a glass of said wine and eat some food. Realize you forgot to eat dinner and you are starving.

19. Make a mental note to open a Pinterest account when you get home. These veggie-cream-cheese-pinwheel-wonton things are absolutely delicious.

20. Drink more wine.

21. Sit on the couch by yourself and pretend to admire jewelry in a catalog…while drinking wine.

22. Think “Seriously? That necklace is $99…?” Remember that is a typical grocery store bill for you. For 2 weeks.

23. Feel out of place. Realize everyone knows everyone. Laugh at their jokes anyway and make awkward conversation.

24. Stand by the food table and try to shove as much in your mouth as possible while simultaneously looking cool and making more awkward conversation.

25. Hear talk of a group going downtown after the party. Someone asks you if you would like to go.

26. Say yes, you would like go. (Will there be more wine…?)

27. Head to the bar. It is in between a McDonald’s and a car wash. Think to yourself that there is no better way to describe living in Maine and remind yourself that you need to write about this later.

28. Call your husband after one cocktail and ask him to pick you up from the bar.

29. Go home. Change into your pajamas. Pour yourself a glass of wine that you know you won’t finish. Go to bed.

30. Wake up the next morning. Think, “I’ll open up a Pinterest account tomorrow.”