Open Mouth, Insert Foot

While it's horribly embarrassing, I just have to write about my experience last night. And I need to provide some background. So there's a relatively new dessert cafe open in Orem, called The Chocolate. It's on State Street by Classic Skating, in one of those old houses converted to a store. It shares a building with a photography studio. It's amazing. Eric and I went there a few weeks ago at the end of a date, and it was... wow. Delicious. And mostly reasonably priced. As Eric and I waited for our treats, we crossed into the studio area, to use the bathrooms. There we found pictures on the wall (obviously) and felt free to criticize. I really didn't care for most of them. On our way out, I noticed a sign that said Ladies Night at The Chocolate is on Wednesdays. Open an hour later and free milk all around. Huzzah!

Fast forward to last night (Wednesday). I had Stephanie and Alyssa over to watch a movie, and when Eric got home earlier than usual, we realized there was still time for us to make it to Ladies Night. Huzzah again! Off we went, and again, as we waited for our treats, we went over by the bathrooms to look at the pictures. I can't lie-- I took them there just to show them the pictures I didn't like. Mean, mean, mean. As we turned the corner, one of us joked about how horrible it would be if the photographer was around to hear us. And then we (mostly Alyssa and I, Stephanie was nice) proceeded to make fun of these pictures. Not horribly, I guess, but certainly not nice. I began to feel uneasy, like someone was watching me. Sure enough, I turned around to see a man on a couch at the other end of the room, mostly in the shadows. Wow. We stuttered out some apologies, and tried to get away, but not before he could say something like, "Oh, so you don't like them? Let's see some of your pictures." Wow. I was mortified. Beyond mortified. And I also just felt bad.

So we hid out upstairs and ate our treats, not having the courage to go downstairs in case we were to see him again. But then the cashier guy brought us up three tarts, and told us they were from the photographer, who said not to worry about it, and that there were no hard feelings. He was concerned he might have been rude, and hadn't meant to be. Wow again. Could I have felt any worse? I think not. We continued to be hideously embarrassed for a few minutes, until the photographer himself came upstairs. I wanted to sink right through the floor. But he was amazingly professional. He said not to worry about it, and he knew he had to have thick skin to be in a business like his, etc. We were able to apologize again, and chatted for a few minutes, friendly as anything. I was very, very impressed. He was quite professional. So, shout out to Studio 216 in Orem. It's not my cup o' tea, but I really respect that guy.

Now all I need to do is work up enough guts to go in there again to drop off the "sorry" note I wrote this morning when I had a guilty conscience, so I won't feel banned from my new favorite place.

Oh, and never do that again.