I have been DENIED

Remember that credit card commercial, I think it was for American Express, where the couple are out at a fancy restaurant, he goes to pay with the card, and the waiter comes back and says, "I'm sorry sir, your credit card has been DENIED," while the rest of the diners look on, gasping in the horror of it all? I am that diner, though the only gasper was mi esposo, and it was not credit that was denied, but my beautiful quilt.

So you know how I've been working on this thing for a year, and one of my goals for this year was to get in a quilt show? I thought I was in like Flynn, since I'd spoken with the president of the quilt guild, described my quilt, told her it was not on the theme (coffee -- bleah, as much as I love the magical bean, I have no desire to include it in a quilt). She didn't think it would be a problem at all, as quilts didn't, apparently, have to be on the theme.

Then, at the guild meeting in April, one of the women on the jury (it is a juried show, after all) said that indeed the quilts had to be on the theme, even if it was a loose interpretation of said theme. Esposo suggested I stick a coffee cup in there, or quilt some coffee-related thing into it. But that was not my artistic vision for the quilt, and anyway, the other person said they didn't have to be on the theme, so I figured I was probably safe with what I'd done. I went ahead and took the quilt to the shop, bought tubes for it, paid my entry fee, and waited for the show.

Well, the show started a week ago Monday, so we went over on Friday to check out the quilts. I was really excited -- my first show! Woo-hoo! I started looking at the quilts, getting slightly disheartened when I didn't immediately see mine. So then I looked around the whole show, slight disheartenment turning into severe disappointment, when it turned out mine wasn't there at all. WTF? I asked someone working there if these were all of them. Yep, that's it, she said. I will admit that I cried in the elevator back down. Esposo was angry, even more so than myself (how lucky am I to have found someone who knows me so well?). When I am depressed, I either eat or shop, and since we were all hungry, it was eating that was on the agenda -- Boca burgers at the airport Denny's (note: WHAT A RIPOFF! $40 for three people, one of whom had a child's meal? Won't be doing that again!).

After thinking about it for a while, I realized it was not the fact that my quilt wasn't in the show that bothered me so much (though I won't say it didn't bother me, of course it did). It was that absolutely no one bothered to call me to tell me that my quilt wouldn't be in the show, for whatever reason, and that I could come pick it up at the quilt shop. So it sat there for almost three weeks with no one bothering to have the least bit of common courtesy to say anything to me? Can I be the only one whose quilt was denied? I know that at that April meeting, several of the women were very upset that quilts now had to be "on the theme," as they'd obviously worked on quilts that weren't. Did they enter those quilts and hope, like I did? Or did they not bother? Maybe I was the only one? Even if that were true, it does not excuse their behavior (or lack thereof). Did they not think what a disappointment it would be to someone (me) to show up at the quilt show and see that their quilt was not in it? Or did they simply not care?

To ice the cake, when I went to pick up my quilt, they couldn't find the rods I'd purchased for, apparently, no reason whatsoever. Fuck me, anyway.

And for the record, I love my quilt, no matter what anyone else thinks about it. But compliments are, of course, appreciated! (Not that I'm fishing for them, don't take it that way!)

And also for the record, I'm very glad, even though my quilt wasn't in the show, that I didn't have any coffee-related anything in it. It just wasn't what I wanted to do, and afterwards I realized I could have changed the title to "Caffeinated Cats" or something to have a "loose interpretation of the theme," but in the end, I am the one who has to live with it, and I am the one who has to be satisfied with it. And I am. Very. Just not with them.