Help!

I think I've officially entered a whole new realm of Southerness. This week, I joined a Guild. For those of you who may have only heard this word associated with Medieval times and apprenticeships, please allow me to clarify. In Birmingham, a Guild is basically an organization for aging debutantes. Now, not to get too paranoid or Da Vinci Code on anyone, but I do think it's possible that my Guild has eyes and ears everywhere. Therefore, for the sake of anonymity and not ending up with some angry soccer moms on my front door, I'll call my Guild the "allet-bay uild-gay." (Man, if they speak pig latin, I am screwed...) And, I also think I should add that were it not for my mother, I would not have joined. Anyway, I'm sitting at our first meeting this past Wednesday and my sense of foreboding and fear was beginning to fade. After all, they served wine, and they promised that the meeting wouldn't last longer than 1 hour. I was even starting to feel good. The president started talking about how our only real responsibility was to attend a ball in June. This I could handle. Then, I flipped through my allet-bay uild-gay guidebook. (Yes, we have a guidebook and a yearbook. Grown women with a yearbook - I'm sure this will work out.) As I was flipping, I turned to the page with our actual ball duties. And, that's when I saw it. Staring out at me so innocently from what looked like a lovely, welcoming letter complete with unnecessary clip art and jauntily colored paper. There it was - 7:30 AM. It seems that the truth about our ball duty is that we are expected to be on the clean up crew which must show up at 7:30 (in the morning!) on the Sunday after the open bar ball event. There are so many things wrong with the previous sentence, I don't know where to begin. I suppose the most important item of note is that the ball is open bar. The cleaning up is very early in the morning. There is nothing about these 2 events and Laurel's history to lead anyone to have any sort of realistic belief I can make both. Nothing. No one else in the room seemed to be bothered by this. So, after listening to a description of the other committees and duties, I finally decided to raise my hand. "Is it possible to join the decorations committee, if say, you just don't like mornings?" I asked. A little laugh went through the room. Even the current president laughed a little, cocked her head to the side, and gave me a somewhat believable closed mouth smile before saying, "No." "But," she added, "don't worry about your makeup or anything." "That wasn't even on the table," I added, laughing. Did this lady really think I was going to get up any earlier than 7:30 to "put on my face" before going to take down greenery with a large group of hungover debs? (In case anyone is wondering what greenery is, the allet-bay uild-gay guidebook also includes a detailed list of acceptable "greenery" like ivy with pictures and extensive directions for proper cutting and snipping procedures.) "And, we'll have muffins," she said, smiling. Oh, well, if there are muffins....I'm sure the mini muffins (because at these kinds of things, they're always mini muffins) that I won't be able to have more than 3 of without enduring the judgemental glares of the super skinny will fix whatever discomfort I feel about climbing terra cotta columns to tear down hydrangea pre-dawn. Does anyone else think this whole Guild thing might not have been the best idea?