After the supersponsor luncheon, I went to the Art Show. I handed my bags to the people behind the counter
outside the room, because of course they don't want people bringing in bags and sneaking valuable art out in them.
I saw many very nice works of furry art (and many very weird ones, such as a portrait of a hybrid species called
a Jackass Penguin). But when I came out, I got an unpleasant surprise; the guy who had taken my bags and put them
on the shelf had laid them on their side, with the tote bag on top! Water was leaking out of it onto my satchel!
I hastily opened it up and checked the contents. Fortunately, nothing was ruined. Everything was OK. The top of
the bag itself was damp, but no water had gotten on any of my books or papers.
I hadn't told the guy not to lay the tote bag on its side because I thought he'd notice the cooler and know not to. It pissed me off that someone could be so stupid! But a wise wolf later told me, "You have to tell them." So I guess I was wrong; the people at the bag check counter deal with so many bags that they're too busy to think about what's in them. So, now I know for next time, at least.
Well, I didn't have time to go up to my room and deal with the wet bag before the next panel I wanted to go to,
the daytime G-rated Furry Mad Libs, hosted by Silverfox, same guy who hosted Mad Libs for Big Kids on Friday
night. So I went into Salon 10 and quickly started laying out my things on the table. I found that the side edge
of the first few pages of my sketchbook had gotten slightly wet, to a depth of about 2 millimeters. It didn't
touch any ink. Nothing got smeared or torn. Whew! All I had to do was let it dry.
So I sat and let my things start to dry out, and let Furry Mad Libs cheer me up. The first story was "Kage and the Chocolate Factory", in which Kage, the OCCUPATIONsockmaker, distributes special COLORmetallic red tickets to NUMBER34 lucky children inviting them to his FOODhasenpfeffer factory.
The second story was "Uncle Kage Mystery", a parody of Scooby Doo Mysteries. If I could remember any of it, I'd write out some of it here.
After Mad Libs, I headed for the elevators. Down in the lobby, there was a gathering of people wearing strange costumes. Not fursuits; tuxedoes and elegant party dresses! Someone was having a wedding, and had happened to reserve space at the Wyndham for the reception on Saturday, the same weekend as Anthrocon. The bar/lounge area was crowded with friends, family, business associates, etc., of the bride and groom, schmoozing, networking and drinking. Then they headed up to the reception in the Horizons ballroom on the rooftop level (same room as the supersponsor luncheon). The Dorsai Irregulars were helping them get up there quickly by allowing them to use three of the six elevators... which meant that only the other three were available to us furries... and other hotel guests. Amusingly, the only person I heard complain about this arrangement was a woman in line behind me who was not with Anthrocon. "Why do they get to go ahead of everybody else?" she said. I thought, good thing for her we're not still back at the Adam's Mark!
So eventually I got up to my room to survey the water damage more fully. As I said, nothing was ruined; but both my satchel and my tote bag were wet, and would have to be emptied and dried out. So I set that up, and put a few essentials in that nice plastic "Plan 9 Publishing" bag I'd gotten my registration materials in. Handy! Then I took that and my camera and tripod, and went back downstairs to the ballroom level, hoping to grab something from the sandwich table for dinner. Unfortunately they'd run out of sandwiches. All they had left was bags of chips. Not good enough. So I went down to the Terrace restaurant on the lobby level and had a bite to eat from the buffet. Pricey, but I didn't have time for anything else because it was almost time for the Masquerade. I paid, and went up to the mezzanine.
