I knew should have plied her with liquor first.

Yesterday, The Blonde and I were shooting some short pieces at one of the Oscar (tm) giveaway parties. These invitation-only parties take place in hotels (they take over an entire floor and set up in the suites - each company gets it's own suite) and give products away to folks who can promote them (actors, actresses, nominees, producers, important people).

It's mostly cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, and shoes (although there were a lot of baby clothes, which they kept trying to give me - even though I'm pretty certain my cat would not appreciate being dressed in a pink hoodie), but in one suite a company was giving away sex toys.

Cool, modern-looking, beautifully designed sex toys given out by an affable German Guy (also very, very cute although I remember thinking that he was probably gay) and a smiling, happy press rep.

We arranged to shoot in their suite and interview them about their products - I thought I could get The Blonde to do a couple of PG-rated jokes, and we'd have a few funny wraparounds*.

We got German Guy to agree, and as soon as the camera started to roll, he launched into a sales pitch about the products, where everything's made (Germany, of course), what each one was and why they're superior to other sex toys, etc... standard sales-pitch stuff, and not sexual in nature at all. He was really hyping the quality of the products and the durability.

As soon as he started his spiel, The Blonde froze.

I mean completely froze - the only reason I knew she wasn't dead was because she would blink every few seconds, while an increasingly desperate German Guy tried pick up the slack by being informative, cheerful and non-threatening.

From behind the camera, I smiled and flapped my hands in what I thought was a gesture conveying happiness and fun in an attempt to get her to do something - anything - other than stand there, stock still and dead silent with a horrified look on her face, clutching a very expensive dildo.

After I'd given up and called cut, German Guy told me he thought he came off as rushed.

What I wanted to say was "Well, you only seemed rushed because you were standing next to someone who was catatonic, so I don't know if I'd worry about it."

What I actually said was "Oh, no! You were terrific! I wish everyone we'd interviewed today was half as much fun!"

Later, she told me that the whole suite just creeped her out, although it seemed to me that they'd really tried to make the vibe in their room non-creepy - the company's logo was bright orange, the sales reps were smiling and happy, and they were even giving away really good German chocolate for those who didn't want the proffered bags of free sex toys.

I suppose this would be a good place to mention that a decade of hearing 'boy talk' in the truck has left me incredibly blasé about sexual topics in general, although most of the time I'd rather not hear the graphic description of what one of my co-workers would really like to do to that stripper.


* A wraparound is the name for the little shots that air right before and after the commercials.