Let's NOT Party Y'all

Two weeks ago I called Paula Deen "America's Hero." I take that back now. Long story short, November 28th was supposed to be one of the crowning moments of my short life. Then something went terribly wrong at Paula Deen's Christmas book signing. It has taken me over a week to collect my thoughts and finally write about this. Here's the sequence of events leading up to the autographed recipe book that never was.

I don't believe in waking up before the sun, yet we were all awake by 6:30 and to the bookstore shortly after 7:00. Oh, the things we did for Paula.

Eric, Caroline, and Ben getting tickets for the book signing at Books-a-Million.

We bought Paula a t-shirt! As we waited for Caroline to get out of class, Ben, Eric, and I put together Paula's gift (cut out the tag, autographed the shirt, etc). The book signing was from 6-8 pm, so we had time to kill. Right.

This is the part where I'm supposed to post a picture of Paula + four smiling college students. Well, just as the Rolling Stones once warned, you can't always get want you want. We arrived back at BAM only to discover "Paula was tired." She was leaving early and there was nothing we could do. I was shocked. Shocked that my night would end like this and shocked that I even cared about something so silly. Security was kind enough to let me snap a quick picture. Then in a moment of genius or madness, I'm not sure which, we thought to run around the corner and hopefully bid farewell to Paula. Moments later she rolled out in her sweet ride (Lincoln Navigator), rolled down her window, said "bye, y'all!" to the three of us, and drove off into the distance. I just don't know what to make of it all.

Sorrow, anguish, and unsigned books


**For those of you who don't know Paula, allow me to introduce the Queen of Bud'uh***