Well, I was sort of looking forward to seeing ol’ Joe Biden again for the first time since fall 2007. He can be quite entertaining, especially when he’s talking about his old buddy Fritz Hollings. Also, I hadn’t seen Fritz in a while, and was interested to know how he was doing.

So I was glad to RSVP that I would indeed attend the dedication ceremony for Fritz’ new library, and grateful to Harris Pastides et al. for remembering to invite me. (Still am, so thanks again for including me in your plans.) Then, after I RSVPed, I put it on my calendar and put it out of my mind.

Then this morning, I had a new thought: It was Friday. I knew from memory that I had no meetings with ADCO clients. So I decided to go casual like everybody else at the office. Or casual for me, anyway. I put on some worn-out, rumple gray chinos and a sport shirt I bought several years ago for $3 at a Wal-Mart up in Pennsylvania. And a jacket from an old khaki suit. I have to wear a jacket, so I have someplace to put my stuff (wallet, keys, notebook, other junk).

And no tie. Which to me is like walking down the street naked. This is only like the second time I’ve done this since starting at ADCO.

Then at breakfast, I read that the Hollings library thing was today. OK, so I do have something to do today. Forgot that. Fine. It will give me something for the blog, maybe something good.

Then on the way out after breakfast, I saw myself in a mirror. Oh, no. I was going to have to go all the way back home and change. I looked like a seedy character from a Graham Greene novel, on acid (the strangely colored shirt being the acid part).

(At this point, you highly organized people are wondering, “Why don’t you consult your calendar every morning when you’re getting dressed, so you know how to dress ahead of time?” And you’re wondering it with that really irritating tone that highly organized people have. Well, I’ll tell you … years ago, I decided to dress in a suit and tie every day so that it didn’t matter what I had to do that day, since often things came up during the day that I couldn’t anticipate, things that weren’t on my calendar yet anyway. So I started waiting to consult my calendar when I got in. It just had not struck me, standing half asleep in the closet this morning, that deciding to do something as radical as not wearing a tie required entirely different assumptions about daily procedures. In the future, I’ll think of that.)

But I needed to get to the office and do SOME work. So I went, and feeling like I neglected the blog yesterday, I posted something quick and easy and then plunged into my e-mail and getting organized on a couple of ADCO projects. Next thing I knew, it was 11:13, with the Hollings thing starting at 12.

For a second, I thought about going as I was. That way there’d be no rush. I could walk over to the event. But then I thought, no, your invitation is at home. And this  isn’t a typical university event; you’re going to be dealing with the Secret Service, and you know what obsessives they are. They aren’t just going to say, “Oh, it’s Brad; come on in.”

So I ran home, knowing I could still be on time if unless I ran into really bad traffic.

When I’m a block from the office, I realize I don’t have my camera. Damn, damn, damn. Turn around? Try to swing back by the office to get it on my way after changing and getting the invitation? Neither. I decided I’d make do with the Blackberry. I wanted to be on time. Any other event like this, the speaking wouldn’t start until half an hour into it, but the Secret Service was involved. I had to be on time.

And at this point, I would have been. At least, I would have made it by noon — fairly easily.

So I get home, a little impatient with the traffic, but it’s OK. I’m good. I change into a good suit, white shirt, tie. No problem. And then I start looking for the invitation. It’s not on the dresser. Damn, damn, damn. It’s not on the desk in my home office. Damn, damn… I suddenly remembered: Even though I had received the invitation at home, when I had called to RSVP, I had done it from the office.

Oh, damndamndamndamndamndamn.

At this point, having turned up the thermostat in the house when I’d left that morning, I’m starting to sweat in the suit. So I jump back in the car, and rave at the traffic all the way back from the office. I’ve got the AC on me full blast, but the sweat is taking hold. I go to park in front of ADCO, and for the first time since I’ve started here, there’s a guy standing right there checking meters. So I get out my SmartCard and put 20 minutes on the thing, when I just need 20 seconds. Then I rush up the stairs, tripping on one, causing a co-worker to call out, “Are you OK?” Yeahyeahyeah, I’m fine.

The invitation is not readily at hand. I start picking up piles of paper and other junk and rifling through it, dropping every pile on the floor as I finish going through it. Of course, the invitation is at the bottom of the very last pile. I jam it into my pocket and grab my camera, long as I’m here…

Damndamndamn…

I get back in the car, head over toward campus, and as I start looking for a parking space, it’s noon. Well, I failed. By now I’m sweating like a pig in the new suit, and I’ve gone to so much trouble that I figure I’ll try to go anyway. Luckily (my first bit of luck all day), I find a space only a block away, since it’s summer. I get out, put an hour and a half on the meter, take off my coat and head for the library. Sweating like mad.

As I’m heading there, it occurs to me that I don’t know exactly where I’m supposed to go, beyond the fact that it’s the Thomas Cooper library. The new thing is on the other side of the building, so where should I approach from?

I’ll bet the invitation will tell me…

Mind you, this is the first time that I had had any reason to look at the invitation beyond the time, date and place (“Noon on Friday, July 23, 2010,” it had said). I mean, what else do you look at an invitation for, aside from dress code and how to RSVP? And sure enough, there was a card inserted into the invitation with a map on one side saying to enter through the library main entrance. Good. That I can find.

Then, on the other side of the card from the map, there was a bulleted list of information, which if I had noticed before I suppose I had thought it was information about the new collection. You know how there’s usually an insert about that sort of thing. But it wasn’t. It was a list of instructions beginning with “Please bring this ticket with you to the dedication ceremony.”

Well, I had done that, but my heart sank. I had a premonition that there were going to be other requirements, perhaps requirements that had something to do with the fact that even though I was only five minutes late to an event that I knew would involve everybody being carefully checked at the front door, meaning people would still be filing in at this point… and the front of the library was deserted…

Yep. There it was. Third bullet: “Doors open at 10:00 a.m. All attendees must be in the Thomas Cooper Library by 11:45 a.m. Please allow ample time to find parking, walk to the Thomas Cooper Library, and be processed through event screening. There will be no exceptions made to this time frame.”

So that was that. After all that, I had failed to make it. I was too hot and harried at this point even to go, “Damndamndamn” any more.

But being the world’s most persistent optimist, rather than turning back to the car, since I had already walked halfway, and since I had spent a rushed hour trying to get this far, I kept going to the door.

And was turned away by a USC security guy who explained that the doors to the event were closed and the Secret Service, as is their wont, weren’t allowing anyone else in. “No exceptions.” I saw the Secret Service guys standing there, looking around with no more crowd to deal with, and reflected from long experience that no exceptions meant no exceptions. I’ve been pushed out of the way and yelled at for standing in the wrong place by these guys often enough in my career to know that they are no respecters of persons, and there is no arguing with their procedures (which is why I was never fond of covering events that involved them, since as a reporter I always sort of assumed that boundaries were for those other, less enterprising, reporters). I lamely, foolishly, gave the guy my excuse about having to run home looking for my invitation, because at a moment like that you want people to know that you weren’t being cavalier about the time, and he was sympathetic, but…

Sheesh.

Anyway, that’s why I don’t have a report for you on Joe Biden’s visit, or on how Fritz is doing. And why I’ll have to get the sweat cleaned out of my good suit even though I didn’t even make it to the event I put it on for. And why I’m feeling the frustration of knowing that the punctual people among you, the people who have judged and harangued and lectured me all my life because I’ve always tried to do to much and put myself in these situations, will smugly judge me again for this failure. Y’all are like that.

But I tried. I tried hard. It just didn’t work out.

Sorry, Fritz — I had wanted to see you again. Sorry, Joe. Sorry, Harris, for not making it to your event. I really wanted to.

Dang.

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