I planned to go to church this morning. I was going to leave at about 9:40 in order to be there at 10:00. And I was going to try my very hardest to break my recent streak of COMPLETELY sleeping through my alarm.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I rolled over this morning and read “9:30″ on the bright display of my alarm clock this morning. Goshdarnit, I thought to myself, not again. I rolled over and went back to sleep, feeling slightly defeated.

I was planning to go to my parents’ house after church, which usually ends at 11:30. So when I finally got up just after 12:00, I felt I should call them to let them know I was still coming.

First I called my Mom’s phone: no answer. Then I called my Dad’s phone: no answer. Two minutes later, My phone rang. It was dad.

“Erin! Did you just call me?” He sounded slightly alarmed.

“Yes, I did. Is your phone off? It went straight to voicemail!”

“That’s because I hung up on you.”

“Why?!”

“Because you called me in the middle of church!!”

…

“WHAT?! But, it’s after noon!”

“No, Erin, it’s 11:15!”

…

And that is when I remembered that my alarm clock is not a normal alarm clock. It is a super fancy, sort of expensive alarm clock that adjusts itself automatically for Daylight Savings Time. But you see—my super fancy, sort of expensive alarm clock was not notified that Daylight Savings Time changed this year… that it, in fact, happened three weeks ago. It thought that Daylight Savings Time began last night, and moved itself one hour forward accordingly.

After cursing my alarm clock, apologizing to my Dad for interrupting church, and having a good laugh at the whole ridiculous situation, I realized what a feeling of freedom that extra hour gave me—I could actually be on time to my parents’ house. I could be early, even. Amazing! Apparently, a firm belief in an incorrect time is the only way to get me up on time.

Maybe I should set my clock an hour ahead more often.

My roommate, Tiffany, comes back from spring break tomorrow. And although, while she was here, I was pretty good about keeping the overflowing containers of crap on my side of the room, in her absence I have spread piles of my own junk over every square inch of the room (excepting her bed).

Tonight I was telling another housemate, Teal, about this. “Tiffany better not come back early and surprise me,” I said, “I think she would take one look at the room and fall down dead.”

“Well,” Teal responded, without missing a beat, “At least then you would have a single room.”

…

Don’t worry, Tiffany. She didn’t mean it. I don’t think.

… who are willing, at a moment’s notice, to drop everything, come TP your car, and then leave you menacing comments about it on your blog.

Makes a girl feel loved. *sniff*

(P.S. Actually, it kind of ticked me off—at least until I found out it was someone I know that did it. )

1. I was mostly asleep when I remembered that I still had to blog tonight. Granted, I was mostly asleep on the chair in the living room, where I had been sitting trying to decide what to do with the remnants of my evening before I passed out, but it’s more dramatic if you imagine that I had to wake up, stumble out of bed, and force myself to blog. I want you to believe I have that kind of Dedication.
2. Speaking of bed… tonight is the first night in three nights that I get to sleep in my own bed. Last night I stayed at my roommates’ parents’ house, and the night before that I stayed at my parents’ house. It feels good to be back with my own pillows and blankets.
3. Can you tell I want to go to sleep?
4. Goodnight.
5. But first… I want you to know that I am currently wearing retainers (which I do several nights a week) that make it difficult for me to speak without slurping, and that I just spent a great deal of time in front of our bathroom mirror poking, prodding, squeezing, and generally trying to get rid of the horrifying zits that I photoshopped out of yesterday’s portraits. I believe this revelation is what’s known as “keeping it real.” You’re welcome.

… but this one probably didn’t.

I should have known I was in trouble as soon as I left the house. I needed to be somewhere only twenty minutes away at 4:15, and I was leaving at 3:45—giving me a good ten minutes to spare. This never happens.

“Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “I’m not sure if I like the idea of being early and just sitting around waiting. Maybe I should take a longer route there.” And I almost did, before reminding myself, “Hey, I’m never early to anything. Why not savor this moment. I’ll just make sure to drive exactly the speed limit the whole way there—that should use up a little more time.”

So I did. I got on the freeway and I concentrated on fastidiously following the speed limit; I made it a little game with myself. (I daresay cars around me did not appreciate this little game.)

Pretty soon I started thinking about where I was headed: to get a haircut. Now, getting my hair cut requires me to summon up a bit of courage; not only because it involves interaction with other human beings (and we know that doesn’t always go so well.), but because I have only been to a hairdresser one other time in my entire life. On top of that, this was going to be the first time I would have my hair cut by a guy. Would that be weird?

These are the kinds of thoughts that were going through my head, combined with my obsessive watch over the speedometer… as I drove past my exit.

At first, I refused to believe what had just happened. No, that wasn’t my exit… couldn’t have been… there’s no way that I just drove by it… Oh, bother, it was my exit. Well, I’ll just turn around and go back.

And this is where my important life lesson for today comes in: it turns out that there’s this funny thing about freeways… you can’t turn around on them.

As this fact began to sink in, I admit that I started becoming a tiny bit irrational. “What?? I can’t just… turn around? This is the 21st Century, people! We can speak to our toasters and tell them to do things for us! I should be able to TURN AROUND ON THE FREAKING FREEWAY!!!”

Then I saw a sign on which the first town listed was at least an hour away—and that’s when I almost burst into tears. Suddenly my “going to be a bit early for my haircut” had turned into “going to be horrifically late for my haircut.”

In actuality, the next exit off of the freeway was ‘only’ 10 miles from the exit I meant to get off at… which, when you count the time it took me to drive back after I had turned around, gave me plenty of time to consider the sheer stupidity of what I had done.

The blog-worthiness of the whole situation did not escape me, of course, even at the time—nor did the irony of the fact that the one time… the ONE TIME I was going to be EARLY for something… I ended up still being five minutes late.

The moral of the story is: Don’t try to be early to anything. You will just end up bungling it.

Right?

When I lived at my parents’ house, it was not hard to guess why a particular object was where it was at any particular moment. Either I put it there, so I knew why it was there, or one of my parents did, so it was supposed to be there anyway. Simple.

Living in a house with six other individuals is a different story. When an object is sitting on the kitchen counter or outside the back door, it’s anyone’s guess as to who put it there and whether it is ’supposed’ to be there. (Whatever ’supposed to’ even means.)

So when I stumble on a situation like this…

… all I can do is scratch my head and wonder:

1) Who left a bag of miscellaneous garbage, including, apparently, a box full of cheerios, on our back steps?

2) How did said box full of cheerios end up cascading down said steps?

3) How many squirrels are going to die of obesity because of this?

Add these to the list of un-answerable questions that Gutenberg forces one to contemplate.

Over the last several years, as I have begun to venture forth into the world without my parents, I have discovered a number of awkward social situations that do not allow me to fulfill my ultimate goal for every moment of my life, which is to leave a trail of highly impressed people behind me, praising my incredible poise and tact and efficiency.

In other words, when it comes to things like hairdressers, and restaurants, and gas stations, I do not exactly know how to… act right. And being who I am, this distresses me.

For example: the first time I ever pulled into a gas station by myself, I left my parents’ car running. The. Entire. Time. Naturally, nobody told me until afterwards that this could have caused my parents’ car (and me) to BLOW UP. Thanks for nothing, folks.

Needless to say, Gas stations and I have never quite gotten along since.

There was also the time, only a month or two ago, that I discovered my inability to pay for gas only after I had pulled into the gas station and rolled down my window and begun speaking to the business-like gas station attendant. That was a little humiliating.

Today, I had to visit the gas station again.

I always pick the wrong line at the gas station. My first step, every time, is to remind myself of which side my gas tank is on, and then to look for the shortest line of cars on the correct side of the gas pump. But then I have to ask myself: that line only has two cars, but they look like they could be there for a while—maybe that line with three cars is almost ready to move forward! Nah, I better stick with the shortest line.

And that, of course, is when every line except the one that I picked moves forward.

But today, as I approached the gas station, I noticed that the lane on the end, on the correct side of the gas pump, had no cars in it. But my first thought was not “What fantastic luck!”, it was, “Oh dear. I’m probably not supposed to use that lane.” Because that is the kind of thing that goes through my head at a gas station.

I bit the bullet and pulled into the lane. And after a few brief, terrifying moments in which I was sure no gas station attendant would look over to my forsaken corner of the concrete, a friendly-looking man ran up to my window. “Fill it with regular, please,” I said.

And then I do exactly what I always do when I am at a gas station waiting for my tank to be filled: nothing. I sat, staring out the window, lost in my own thoughts.

When friendly gas station man returned to the window to hand me my receipt, he said, “You’re kind of quiet, aren’t you?”

Oh no, I thought, I’m supposed to talk to them, too?

“Am I?” I said.

“Yes, you’re quiet. I bet you’re the quiet, shy one of your brothers and sisters, eh?”

“Well, anyone who knows me wouldn’t say I’m quiet!” I squeaked. I am not sure what came over me in that moment, but all of a sudden I felt the need to say something—anything—to this man that would prove I could make conversation. That is the only way I can explain why, out of nowhere, I said, “It kind of looks like it’s snowing, doesn’t it?”

“No Ma’am, it’s only a light rain.”

“Oh! Of course.”

And then I rolled up my window and drove away, before he could accuse me of being blind as well.
In my defense: It did look a little slushy.

… by typing “I swallowed super glue” into Google:

YOU ARE AT THE WRONG WEBSITE.

You should not use the precious few moments you have before the walls of your esophagus fuse permanently together reading about the time I spilled super glue all over myself.

Instead, you should do something productive, like watching this a few times. You’ll thank me later.

P.S. That is not actually good advice.

Green is basically my favorite color. I am part Irish. I have red hair. My name means Ireland, for heaven’s sake.

All of this means that I am contractually obliged to get excited about St. Patrick’s Day.

So it was with much jubilation that yesterday I donned my very green apparel and prepared for a big night of… grocery shopping. And watching movies with friends. And taking pictures of myself in my room at 1:00 in the morning, while the UofO campus caroused drunkenly around my house.

Personally, I bet I had more fun.

Well, that is just disgraceful. Three posts in as many weeks?! It’s really high time to update—otherwise you might think that ridiculous things have stopped happening to me! But don’t you worry your pretty little head. They still hunt me down like pigs after truffles.

Like, for instance, the time when I drove into the gas station and then discovered that I did not actually have any way to pay for my gas. Ridiculous.

Or the time that I stuck the takeout container in the microwave, took it out again and wondered why there were little burn marks around the METAL handle in the paper container. Perilously ridiculous.

But by far the most ridiculous episode in my recent history happened a few weeks ago, on a seemingly innocent Wednesday afternoon. My classes were over, so I headed down to one of Gutenberg’s secondary houses to visit some friends.

I was carrying my precious Macbook Pro in my arms, and as I was walking I started thinking things like, “Hmmm, what if someone came running up from behind me and just knocked my computer out of my arms? Or what if they just grabbed it from me and started running? What would I do?!”

These thoughts absorbed me as I approached the front door, warily eyeing strangers passing by on the sidewalk behind me. In fact, I was still thinking about it as I started walking up to the porch—except that by “walking,” I really mean, “taking one step on the muddy stairs and having both of my feet fly out from underneath me.”

It’s funny how, as you are arching rather ungracefully towards the pavement, time seems to stretch out enough to allow you to have coherent thoughts in the space between standing upright and lying splayed on the ground. My coherent thoughts, in this particular instance, were, and I quote: “SAVE THE COMPUTER! SAVE THE COMPUTER! SAVE THE COMMPPPUUUTTTEEEERRRR!!!!!”

I clutched the laptop to my chest. It was not until my face actually connected with the pavement that I realized, “Oh, perhaps I could get hurt as well.”

So much for coherent thoughts.

Amazingly, aside from a couple silly little bumps on my forehead and the bridge of my nose that stuck around for a few days, I was fine. I consider myself very fortunate, as head-on impacts with concrete steps do not always end so well.

The whole incident made me question my priorities—was my computer really more important than my life? Probably not. Although, as I pointed out to one of my classmates, if I had died I wouldn’t have had to worry about my computer being broken.

In other words, I am still a living reminder of the bittersweet truth that just because one is a college student, one does not necessarily possess any common sense.

Or, as Natalie once put it, “It’s okay, Erin. The world has to have people like you, too!”

:-p