I recently had the pleasure of attending a family friend’s surprise 50^thbirthday party, held at a not so humble restaurant. While this was not my first experience at an event such as this, it was probably my most humbling. I’m happy to compile a guide to such an evening…

Location: Baku, ~~Azerbaijan~~ Brooklyn, NY. Please arrive to the Baku Palace reasonably on time, preferably in a white Mercedes. (BMW will also do.)

Attire: Sequins, stilettos, and of course, a big fur coat and diamonds.

Ambience: Step inside the Baku palace, and marvel at the grandiose décor, with mirrors on every wall, gigantic chandeliers, marble staircase, etc. In the middle of the main dining room is the dance floor, complete with a stage with not one but two live singers, accompanied by loud background dance music, a large disco ball hanging from the ceiling, additional disco light effects, and evidently, a smoke machine. Speaking of smoke… smoking indoors is ~~not frowned upon~~ perfectly acceptable.

Cuisine: The food! The table is absolutely covered with the finest dishes, everything from fried calamari salad to foie gras. It’s foodie heaven. Not that there’s a shortage of beverage, either. Feel free to have your wine and your vodka glass refilled as often as you like.

And don’t forget to dance. Dancing is required for everyone! Yes, even senior citizens. (And my dad, who was happily swaying side to side with his eyes half closed.)

*What to avoid* (And now, the evening humbles…)

While you can drink and dance as much as you want, whatever you do, do NOT engage in conversations regarding politics.* While the elders around you have every right to express their opinions on rap music or Facebook, you’d be a fool to pretend like you even vaguely understand anything about politics. If you do venture into one of these conversations, prepare to be seriously humbled. I repeat, do not go into it! Unless maybe you’re a raging conservative, but even then, for a lady, especially a young lady, it’s probably best to keep quiet. Because a 22-year-old lady clearly cannot possibly know anything about the government, or politics, or the world in general.

But just when you thought I’d had enough humbling…. I got a second helping of humble pie, courtesy of one of the Marinas at the table.

The Marina sitting to the right of me is becoming seriously concerned. This Marina happens to be my mother, and after repeatedly trying to shush me for the past 10 minutes, she has had it. It’s bad enough I have all these opinions, but I’m a single young lady too, and I’m always pretending like I don’t want a million babies. In fact, I was the only single one at this event, besides my friend’s grandma, who had by default become my dance partner for the evening. So my mom takes matters into her own hands, and decides to play matchmaker. She has the good idea to arrange a match** with the son of Mr. Palinlover or whatever his name is. My protests are useless.

I roll my eyes, and then turn to another Marina, sitting to the left of me, who I thought was my FRIEND, but is unfortunately now in on it too. ”Why not? He’s tall, he’s dorky. You might like him.”

Great.

But now, can we go back to the festivities please? Techno music! Disco ball! Dancing! Please? Wait, what?! It’s almost 11:30? Sadly, tomorrow is Monday, and I have to be back at work at 8:30. Yuck. Time to trek back across Staten Island.

*Yes, I know it’s a faux pas to discuss politics at the dinner table, no matter the occasion, but in my defense, I was not the one to start this very unladylike conversation. (So if somebody asks you, at one of these events, whether you were one of those idiots who voted Obama, probably the best thing to say is “Obama who?”)

**Lucky for me, this is when my mom was SEVERAL wine glasses into the night, and I’m almost certain she forgot about this by now… well, I’m safe until the next dinner party anyway.