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?