I can't think of a title for this one...

...so I'll just tell you what happened.

My profession requires I attend classes every year to keep up with my certification. I decided to attend one in St. Louis this week. I had registered just days before; when I asked on the phone if the course was full, the lady said "Oh, no, we have no limits! We register as many as we can!" The topic was Sensory Processing Disorder. This topic is not only helpful for my job, but I also happen to have a daughter with that diagnosis. I was looking forward to learning new information that might be useful.

When I walked in the room, 50% of the chairs were facing the back of the room. The hotel had put chairs on both sides of the tables, thus resulting in only half of the participants facing the speaker. Remember the "No limit" policy they mentioned? They weren't kidding. I was given a chair in the back corner of the room, with no table to sit at but I thought, at least I can see the speaker. When the speaker arrived, he said No worries, you won't need to see me at all today, there's no Powerpoint, there's no reason to look at me, we're just gonna read from the manual! That was my first clue that I picked a bad course. Clue #2 came when he said All questions have to be asked during the breaks.

I considered leaving but I knew that I wouldn't be able to count the hours, so I would be forced to attend yet another course. So I stayed. I played on my Blackberry, posted on Facebook, texted, whatever I could do to pass the time.

At lunch, I decided to eat in the hotel restaurant. I sat with 3 women I didn't know. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. One woman disagreed with every word that came out of my mouth. Another woman responded to each comment with something along the lines of "I"m breastfeeding" or "I need to pump", or "My breasts are really full". I mentioned that my daughter has Sensory Processing Disorder and the other woman waved me away with Oh, we all have sensory issues! When the meal ended and I said I needed a piece of chocolate, they all looked at me like I said I just crapped my pants.

So I found a hotel employee who informed me that the hotel did not have a gift shop but I could find chocolate in the laundry room.

Before lunch, the speaker had ranted on and on about how artificial and processed foods are destroying our children's minds. When I returned from lunch, the hotel had placed packages of artificially sweetened and overprocessed cookies on the tables for us to snack on. I would have raised my hand to comment on it, but remembered he told us Sorry, no questions or comments except at break time. So I ate the fake cookies and the laundry room chocolate.

The afternoon dragged on. I sat in bewilderment when he spent 15 min talking about the side effects of fluorescent bulbs in our schools. He suggested we ask the schools to replace the bulbs with floor lamps. He droned on and on about his research and his publications and his theories.

I finally walked out, 45 min early and shortly after he made a joke about someone being bipolar. If you know me, you know I find no humor in anyone being bipolar.

Of course, now that it's over, I'm glad I stayed. I got my 6 credit hours. I got a day off from work.

And had some squeaky clean chocolate.