It’s nice to have friends you don’t have to be “cool” with.

You know what I mean:  the ones you don’t have to impress with your clothes, or your promotion, or with some clever antectdote about howgreat you’re doing.

The ones you can be yourself with.

Last weekend I had dinner with just such a group of friends.  Afterwards, as is our custom, my friend Esra and I stopped off for coffee before heading home.

Since it was the first snowy night of the year, and because I’d already had way too much caffeine, we ordered hot chocolate and biscotti instead.

My extremely un-cool incident began with a mishap involving the biscotti.

I had talked my friend into a late-night viewing of Little Women, and was searching my phone for movie times when the biscotti slipped out of my fingers.  There was a moment when I could’ve grabbed it as it bobbed along the chocolatey surface, but I hesitated and it plunged to the bottom of the cup.

No big deal.  I’d get to it when I reached the bottom of the cup.

This was not to be.  At least, not in the way I’d anticipated.

Because a few minutes later, I knocked the cup over with my elbow.  It was a straight shot, right from the table into my lap. The chocolate milk–thankfully no longer scalding hot–soaked through my jeans to my thigh.

It spilled onto the chair as well, ensuring the seat of my jeans was also drenched.

On top of that, the chocolate biscotti had disintegrated into a dark brown pile that was also currently all over me.

It had gotten the sleeve of my jacket, and the hat hanging out of my pocket as well.

While Esra and I cleaned up the mess as best we could with fistfuls of tiny beverage napkins, I took a step back and survyed myself.

Brown liquid soaking my jeans.  Ground up brown biscotti stuck to my butt.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right.

There went my chance for a fifth viewing of Little Women.

Because even though I was grateful to be with a friend where I didn’t feel completely embarrassed at what I’d done, even I didn’t have the confidence to go into a movie theater looking like I’d soiled myself.