I Did a Dumb Thing

My weekend ended up being a lot more productive than I planned. I swear: if you’re having trouble getting stuff done, just make a plan to be completely lazy. It will almost always get shot to hell. In my case, it ended up being a good thing. About an hour after my last post, my friend called me and asked if I could watch my godson for the evening. I will never pass up an opportunity to hang out with that kid, who is adorable and awesome. However, he happens to be two years old and the house was a mess/not completely safe for toddlers. I had planned to clean on Sunday and Monday, in preparation of Roommate’s visit (and a completely unrelated dinner party my sister planned for Tuesday night), but Saturday was supposed to be a lazy day.  Or not…

Instead of watching Friday Night Lights for hours, we compressed two days worth of cleaning and organizing into a few hours. It was all worth it, though. I got to discover Elliott Moose, my godson made me laugh out loud several times, and I got super sweet cuddles from him after bath time, which made my ovaries ache to have my own babies (TMI? Oh well…).

In any event, this changed the face of my weekend, but it all worked out (probably better than it would have, since my sister and I are world-class procrastinators and needed a kick in the butt to get going). By Monday night, I had one last sink-full of dishes left to scrub and two bathrooms to clean.  Since I knew thought I had a few hours on Tuesday before Roommate’s flight landed, I went to bed with a plan to finish in the morning (did I mention I’m a world-class procrastinator?).

This morning completely got away from me. Every chore took ten times longer than I thought and I kept adding things to the list. Also, I think I may be allergic to Windex, because I was nauseous for most of the morning, even with the windows open and trying to hold my breath when I sprayed anything. I finally finished most of it and my sister said she’d do the rest while I went to get Roommate. I was a half-hour late getting into the shower, which meant I was a half-hour late leaving the house. The airport is about an hour away, so I was very late. 

And that was before I realized I was out of gas. So into a Shell station I flew and tried to fill up as fast as I could (incidentally, I don’t think saying “Come on. Come on. Come ON!” makes it pump faster). After the gas pump failed to stop auto-pumping and spilled half a gallon of expensive gas on the ground and my car, which I got to pay for, I was on my way.

I was probably going to miss Roommate coming through the security gate and would have to catch her at baggage claim, so I was stressing that the trip was getting off to a bad start (who knows why… I’m just weird like that). But. Then. I was about two-thirds of the way to the airport when I realized that I may have done a dumb thing. A very dumb thing.

You see, Roommate had planned to come in July. Then she changed the trip to a different week in July. Then she switched it to May (do you see why I didn’t trust her when she said she was coming?). And she sent me each itinerary. And I had already put the first trip in my iPhone calendar. Do you see where this is going? Let me give you a hint: it’s going to a dumb place. Yes, I had remembered the arrival time of one of the July flights, not the May flight. So I got to the airport seven hours early… Yes, I’m that girl.  That dumb girl.

I had a choice to make. I could kill seven hours (SEVEN hours!) in a city that had no real attraction for me except for the airport.  Or I could drive an hour back home and do the trip again later in the evening. In other words, I could waste an eighth of a tank of expensive gas and put 180 miles on my car in order to have a few hours at home and join the dinner party for an hour or I could waste seven hours and a lot of money shopping for things I don’t need….

I came home.  But I came home a dumb girl. So, let this be a lesson to you all: stupidity costs money.  Another lesson: check flight times (and the dates of said flight times) before you leave for the airport. It will save you a lot of time and money. And it will save you from being dumb.

And… Roommate just texted me to say she has finished her layover, boarded her second flight, and will see me in three and a half hours. I’m a dumb girl!!!!!

[Updated to add:] So, I somehow still managed to be 30 minutes late picking her up from the airport. But we got to eat frozen yogurt, so there's that. And really, if you do the totals, I was still 6.5 hours early. Or something...