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