Sometimes It's Okay to Be Snitty.....

....and sometimes it's wiser NOT to be a snit.

I almost never choose wisely. Sometimes I do...

Like the other day, when I was on my bike. A car behind me started blowing its horn insistently and incessantly. We soon came to a very sharp curve in the road (actually it's more of an "L" than a curve), and there was an accident there. (I'm surprised there's not an accident there every hour of every day.) Traffic was stopped in both directions while they loaded the car onto a wrecker, so it was a perfectly acceptable time to get snitty and turn around to face the driver behind me. I was ready to yell, "What is your PROBLEM?" when the lady (whose windows were down) said, pointing excitedly, "It was her! It was her!" She was indicating the woman in the car behind her, and she was very interested in having me understand that it wasn't SHE who was blowing the horn. The impatient one turned off onto another road, because apparently neither a bicycle NOR a wreck was going to keep her from her appointed duties.

Sometimes, though, I don't choose very wisely as to the appropriate level of snittiness.

A couple of days ago, in preparation for our trip, I went to the bank to cash a check. I was forced to use this archaic form of financial transaction because the amount of money I wanted to withdraw was more than our bank will allow to be withdrawn from an ATM.

Late in the afternoon, our house phone rang. Almost no one we want to talk to uses that number, as we both use our cell phones more than the house phone these days. The caller I.D. indicated a town about two hours away, so I figured it to be a political or sales call. So I let the answering machine pick up. (Yes, we still have one of those.)

The woman identified herself as being from our bank, and she said she was looking for, "Uh.... uh.... Day-na... Uh... Uh... Uh... Poo... Poo-it."

Now I realize my first name, D-E-N-A, is unusual enough to give some people pause. People can't spell it when they hear it or pronounce it (obviously) when they hear it. I get "Diana," "Dana" (pronounced DAY-na), even "Dee-Anna." How the HELL do people get Dee-Anna out of four letters?????

And our last name... P-R-U-I-T-T.

I just don't see a lot of different ways you can pronounce that. It rhymes with "Do It," so we could be our own spoof of a Nike commercial.

There's no graceful way to say this, so I'll just wade on in it. Some members of some ethnic groups (actually a number of ethnic groups) simply cannot pronounce our last name. And I just don't know why. Call me insensitive.

After she stammered and stuttered and didn't come close to getting either of my names right, I snatched up the phone and interrupted her. I may or may not have snarled my name(s) correctly. I felt completely justified in being snitty at that point.

Until the woman mentioned that I had left my checkbook at the bank.

My whole stupid checkbook.

Just roll that snitty attitude up, put it in your purse ('cause there's plenty of room in there, without the missing checkbook), and go on up to the bank to retrieve your checkbook.

Dummy.

The Bike Ride That Wasn't.....

Before I launch into this scintillating topic, I have a rhetorical question. Or five.

What is it about us humans that makes us feel obligated -- nay, COMPELLED -- to report stupid things we've done? Especially stupid things that NO ONE IN THE WORLD might otherwise get wind of? Things that have to make our listeners (or, in this case, readers) question not only how the hell we managed to get through graduate school, but how we get our shoes tied?

Here's my theory:

It's a form of purging. We think that if we get rid of these ridiculous errors by retelling them, they are thereby cleansed from our systems. And there's no chance of them lying around in there, fermenting and fornicating and multiplying.

Allow me to purge. Please. It's necessary.

Rozmo and I registered for a bike ride that took place today, one we've done numerous times before. It is a relatively short drive (**ahem**) and in a rural, picturesque part of the state. It overlaps several other rides we do in the same general vicinity. None of that information is really vital to this paragraph, except the part where I said I've BEEN THERE BEFORE.

I got up at 5:00 this morning (my DAY OFF, remember?) to drive to the bike ride, giving myself plenty of time to get there, register, get my t-shirt, etc. I started getting frustrated because my GPS didn't agree with the printed directions (they never do), but I didn't want to take the interstate this time anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. I thought.

Rozmo called me about 30 minutes before the ride was supposed to start, and I told her I was STILL 15 miles away. I don't know what caused the epiphany (is there a better word than "epiphany" when what you really mean is "OH HOLY CRAP"?) as soon as we hung up the phone, and it was too stupid an idea for it to sink into my brain.

I was indeed 15 miles from Cochran, Georgia. Here, let me show you on the map how far that is from my town.

My town to Cochran, Georgia.

Only the ride was taking place in Concord, Georgia.

My town to Concord, Georgia.

That's a difference of about 98 miles. I therefore drove 83 more miles THAN I HAD TO for a bike ride that I DIDN'T GET TO DO.

The distance from Cochran, Georgia to Concord, Georgia.

In my (very weak) defense, we have done a bike ride in Cochran before. It was last month, and I didn't do it this year. Perhaps I should have, in which case I might have realized I didn't need to go to that town AGAIN. Also in my defense, I was awake most of last night due to tooth pain (yes, again, a root canal is scheduled for Monday and I've never looked forward to anything more in my life) and I questioned whether I should even attempt to do the ride.

I had so many opportunities to prevent this debacle. I'm embarrassed to say (but I'm going to say it ANYWAY, in the interest of purging and all) that I had printed directions IN MY HAND that clearly showed the correct name of the town I should have been going to. When I typed the town into my GPS, however, I was confident that I knew where I was going. Concord...Cochran. There are some similarities there.

When I entered the information into the GPS, it was readily apparent that the trip was going to take every bit of 3 hours (or more) instead of the 2 hours I knew it was supposed to take (because I DID read THAT part of the printed directions). That would have been an excellent opportunity to ... oh, I don't know ... check to make sure I entered the address correctly?

When I finally gave up and decided to allow the GPS to take me to my "destination" and stop "recalculating," she took me down I-75 and then EAST on I-16. I knew very well that the little town of Concord sits smack between I-85 and I-75, and going east of I-75 should never have been in the picture.

Good. Lord.

On what may be the most beautiful day of 2012 so far, I spent the rest of the day (other than the 5-hour part I was in my car) alternately sleeping and beating myself up for being so STUPID. I feel bad for letting Rozmo down and making her not only ride alone, but be the last one to leave and potentially the last one to get back. (But I know her better than that.)

I also feel bad because I wasted money. That's a relatively new emotion for me, guilt about wasting money. I registered for the ride online ahead of time, so that was about $30. (Rozmo did get my t-shirt for me, so there's that, although I don't know that I will ever wear it, not having done the actual ride.) I wasted almost an entire tank of gas driving to the town-where-the-bike-ride-was-NOT-being-held, so that's an additional $70. Not to mention 5 hours of my life.

Damn. I thought purging would make me feel better. Not so much.

Argh.

**The preceding post has been brought to you by my new best friend, Lortab.**

Almost Famous.....

When Katydid and I were walking to Coleman Coliseum for the gymnastics meet Friday night, there were nice police officers directing traffic. FOOT traffic. I've always been kind of smug about the fact that at UGA we have police officers directing traffic after home meets. But I never realized that some places have to direct traffic - FOOT traffic at that - BEFORE the meets. I'll tuck my smugness away where no one can see it.

Anyway, as we crossed the street I was reminded  of the time I was almost famous. It took me almost the rest of the way to the Coliseum to tell it, because I get hysterical every time I try to recount the story. Oddly ... no one else thinks it's as funny as I do.

Way back when Sweet Girl was a little bitty thing, we had some kind of official convocation at the University of Georgia. I think it was in 1985, which would have been the 100th anniversary of UGA, so that kind of makes sense. It was apparently a very big deal, because then-Vice-President George Bush was the keynote speaker. The first George Bush.

Because I worked at UGA and the ceremony was in a building right up the street from my office, and because it made me look interested and got me out of the office for a couple of hours, I attended the convocation. I cannot for the life of me tell you to this day anything anyone said at the ceremony.

After the speeches and pomp and circumstance were over, I had to leave to take Sweet Girl to the doctor for a check-up. The streets adjacent to the parking lot where I parked were blocked off, and a policeman was standing in the road directing ... nothing. I approached him to ask what time the streets would be reopened, because clearly my daughter's health was way more important than any old Vice President.

As I opened my mouth to ask my question, the nice policeman snarled, "Lady, get out of the ROAD!"

I looked up, and the Vice Presidential motorcade, flags a-flying and Official Seal of the United States of America a-blazing, was bearing down on me. Fast. Very fast. And their agenda did NOT include stopping for some dumb broad standing in the middle of the road asking a police officer a very legitimate question.

I scurried out of the way, embarrassed and chastened, and never did get the answer to my question. I guess the roads opened up soon enough, though, because I'm not still there.

And that is how I almost got famous.

Dead, but still famous.

Adolescent Behavior is Contagious.....

Subtitle: I Should Be Ashamed of Myself

I think I mentioned a while back that Hubby bought a new car. I told him he didn't need something with 140 mph on the speedometer, and he said he wouldn't go any faster than 130.

Every time we go out to eat now, we go in his car. But he has usually been playing golf (read: drinking beer) all day, so he allows me to drive.

And he always says, "Punch it." "Floor it." Or something equally juvenile.

I tell him I'm not going to drive fast because I'm a wimp and afraid of getting a speeding ticket. (I've only had one in my life, when I was 18 and driving to Daytona Beach and I cried for the whole three days I was there over a $25 speeding ticket.)

Last night we went to the one town I don't like to go between Thanksgiving and Christmas because all the shoppers come out and bring three cars each and clog up the streets. Even after the students go home for Christmas, traffic is still a nightmare during the holiday season.

Let me go on record here and say I am NOT one of those people who exhibits road rage. I may get irritated, I may sometimes allow other drivers to get somewhat under my skin, but I am not an aggressive driver. I don't use the horn (much) or the middle finger (hardly ever), and if I think another driver is annoyed with ME, I don't make eye contact.

One thing that DOES get on my nerves, though, is when a driver insists on driving in the left lane. The major road between the college town and our town is not a controlled-access highway, so sometimes it's necessary for people to turn left, but there is no sense in people getting in that left lane and clogging up the lane for everyone else.

When I FINALLY got around a car that was cruising along at just under the speed limit in the left lane, Hubby said, "Smoke him."

(That's another of his favorites.)

And I did.

I punched it, and that Challenger took off like somebody had just counted down to a space shuttle liftoff. I was then in the right lane and gaining (rapidly) on another car, so I pulled out to pass it too. Then I realized it was a Mustang.

And I channeled my inner Hubby and smoked him too.

I am a wimp, though, so as soon as I saw his taillights in the mirror, I eased off the accelerator. Hubby said, "What did you get up, 100?"

I glanced at the speedometer and saw it sweep past 100 mph ON THE WAY BACK DOWN.

"Yeah," I replied.

Since I had my laser eye surgery only on one eye, I have these special glasses I'm supposed to wear when I drive at night. I can't find them.

What an idiot.

E 5 L .........

This is one of those stories I really shouldn't tell about myself. I shouldn't even have told Hubby. I should just keep it inside, relieved to know that no one else witnessed my stupidity. But no.

In a show of supreme self-confidence, to demonstrate just how high my self-esteem is, to acknowledge in a very public way that my three college degrees sometimes appear to have been wasted time and money, I have to tell you the mistake I made yesterday morning.

First a little background.

Our new bedroom suit (you know, the one that caused us to have to make $10,000 renovations on our house and it's now a two-bedroom instead of a three-? Yeah, that one) has a HUGE headboard/bookcase/mirror combination (it even has a compartment for WINE, for Pete's sake). It makes it impossible to sit up in bed and read, but that's beside the point. There is an open section (for books, I presume) right behind our pillows, and this is where Gus has decided he likes to sleep. He goes to sleep on the end of the bed, but after everyone has sufficiently settled down for the night, he makes his way to the headboard and proceeds to make a lot of noise carving himself out a place to lie down. Sometimes I think the carving is literal.

Night before last, sometime in the middle of the night, Gus managed to pull the clock off the shelf above his lair. I put it back on its shelf and went back to sleep.

When I was getting ready for my bike ride yesterday, I walked in the bedroom and looked at the clock. It had a very strange error message on it.

E 5 L.

E 5 L? What the hell is THAT?

That damn dog. He's broken my clock. And I really LIKED that clock. It has a wonderful feature on it whereby you can silence the alarm but not turn it off. Therefore you don't have to remember to turn it back on every day. (What you DO have to remember is to turn it OFF for the weekend. Only takes a couple of 5:00 AM Saturday wake-ups to get in THAT habit.) I guess you could consider it a 24-hour snooze button. The button even has a little indention in it, so you can feel whether or not you're on the right button. Just in case your dog has a habit of moving the clock in the night.

E 5 L. My poor clock.

I wondered what kind of error message that could be and whether or not it could be fixed. I become attached to things, and I have had this little clock for several years. I know I can get a new one relatively inexpensively, but I have a RELATIONSHIP with that clock. I want THAT one.

But now it's E 5 L.

Those of you who are smarter than I (which is possibly every single person reading this post) have probably already figured out my mistake.

E 5 L isn't an error message.

It's what a digital clock reads at 7:53. If the clock is upside-down.

Whew........Close Call.......

And I'm not even talking about the SEC Gymnastics Championships. We came in 3rd again this year, but we aren't terribly disappointed. We had a good, solid meet with only one fall, and our girls placed in every event. One of ours won the all-around, a senior who has been rock solid all year, and I coolant be prouder of her. We didn't win, but neither did Florida, and that feels like a victory in itself.

No, the close call came AFTER the meet. Katydid and I were in the car, trying to navigate the streets of Birmingham in search of something to eat, when I realized it might be a moot point. Because I had left my camera bag in the arena, underneath my seat. Not only did it have my precious digital Canon EOS Rebel in it, but also my driver's license and every credit card I have.

To make a long story short, we went back, it wasn't under the seat where I had been, but it had been turned in and everything was retrieved. Whew. I don't know when I've felt so stupid. My faith in the good people of Alabama has been restored. Now I'm even happier that they won the meet.