I think I’m going to be dusting off and buffing up some of my tutorial templates for different social media tools in the next weeks and posting them here for people I met up with at BlogHer08.

If there are any templates someone would like to see first, just ask. I’ll work on those before any others. Gosh, it’s been a full day and I’m still mostly glowing from the last day at the conference.

While for the most part, BlogHer rocked, there were some rather unpleasant surprises along the way. One, surprisingly, happened in the exhibitor hall.

Now, I’m usually behind the table at expo’s and conventions. It’s rare I get to play at being the attendee and being pampered too. One of the rules of a table I run is that everyone is a customer. Even the people working the convention. Never deny someone your time and information just because they don’t hit a demographic. Be gracious and smile. For bobsake smile.

So imagine my humiliation at finding a vendor (whom I won’t name) completely ignoring me because I wasn’t a mom.

Me: Hi, this looks interesting, can you tell  me about it?
Her: Sure! How old is your child?
Me: Oh, I don’t have any kids, but I have a niece who will be turning 5 next month. (says the auntie who spoils her only niece shamelessly)
Her, with a slight frown: Where do you blog then?
Me: Oh, I’m a corporate blogger. I work for PAS and run their Business in General blog.
Her, with raised eyebrow and slight disdain: Oh….

and then, gentle reader, she turned her head. No, turned her entire body away from me. Giving me the clear brush off.

I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. In my mind, at that second as I move away from her table, I hear my little internal voice say quite clearly – “Lady. My niece is turning five, and she has a very, VERY generous and loving Auntie.  You have a product of which there is a rather large sticker price. So, in the immortal words of Julia Roberts from the movie Pretty Woman, ‘Big mistake. Huge!’”