‘How to Survive’ Part Four: The Randomly Malfunctioning Alarm Clock

So there you are, sleeping soundly when some little bit of your semi-conscious mind says, “hmm…it’s a little brighter outside of my eyelids than it normally is before my alarm goes off.”

But you ignore that. You have no reason to doubt the accuracy of your cell phone alarm. It’s not yet failed you. You sleep.

When you realize it really has to be brighter out than normal, you pull yourself into full waking consciousness and reach out for the phone on the tabletop beside you. Flip it open. Force open the lids.

Oh. Crap.

7:43.

AM.

What time are you supposed to be sitting at your desk answering the endlessly ringing phone? Oh yeah. That would be 7:45 AM.

First step: Call Work.

Still too early for anyone else to be answering YOUR phone so when that fails, you call one of the only other numbers you know. Finally reach a person, explain that you had actually originally planned to be late that morning and had already told your boss you would be but then plans changed and you took your scheduled lateness off the calendar so you needed to let someone know you might be as much as an hour late. Considering you had overslept by an hour and a half.

Two minutes later you’re in the shower, bathing quicker than you’ve bathed in your life. Thank heavens it’s Friday and jeans day. No leg shaving required. Another three minutes later, you’re shoving yourself into your clothes. Thirty seconds later you’ve got the hair dryer going because you can’t even let your hair dry naturally before making it into the office at this point (and wet hair just really doesn’t work in retail). Barest bits of makeup and jewelry, glance in the mirror, and you’re out the door.

Gracious, that was only took fifteen minutes. Unbelievable.

And then of course you get behind the slowest driver in the world. Well, okay they are actually speeding, just not enough for your particular needs. You use the extra time to call work one more time to make SURE everyone knows you are in fact on your way and you’re SO sorry. Fifteen more loooooooong minutes later, you find yourself in the parking lot. You practically run the five jillion miles to the bookstore. Because you are in fabulous shape, you make the trek at about a jillion miles a minute (takes about five minutes) and you’re clocked in, a mere thirty-five minutes after opening your eyes. This is a miracle.

So, to sum up, survival of this situation requires doing everything in your morning routine faster than you’ve ever done it before, a lot of cursing (yes, I actually left this out of the description above, but trust me it was a large part of my particular morning), and several apologies to your coworkers and boss. Oh yeah, and working your butt off every minute of the day you are there. And skipping lunch.

Which reminds me… I guess I’d better eat some dinner!

 

Trucker Love

I’m confused about what makes me so attractive to truckers. I do a lot of travelling for work and I often share interstates and highways with 18-wheelers, often pass them or they pass me. I’d say about 25% of the time, I get honked at while beside the cab of one of these trucks. Am I, without realizing it, giving the universal signal for trucker horns that kids sometimes give while on long boring road trips with their parents? I am pretty sure I’m just minding my own business when I get these driving “propositions.” I try to ignore it, keep my eyes on the road and either slow down so they can pass me or speed up so I can pass them faster. On one particular occasion, I passed a trucker who had honked at me and surreptitiously glanced into my rear view mirror to find him waving at me with a big psycho grin on his face. Needless to say, my speedometer clocked in around 97 mph. (Mom, don’t panic. Pretend that I’m exaggerating.)

Anyway, this sort of thing happens to me regularly and has since I’ve been driving, really. I’ve become a more “robust” woman over the years, and yet the honking continues. I hesitate to complain about this since it’s always nice to be found attractive, but it also makes me just a tiny bit uncomfortable. I’m not sure what it is about me that’s appealing, but either way, it takes a certain sort of person to honk at a woman while driving. And it’s a little intimidating to be honked at while driving along in an itty bitty car and they’re right next to me in their big ol’ honkin’ (ha… honkin’) mac truck and could easily run me off the road if they feel the urge… scary!

And so, if you happen to be a trucker, I humbly submit to you that honking at women is not the best tactic for attracting a mate. Please note that I have never been honked at by anyone driving a regular vehicle (except when I do something wrong, which only happens very rarely), so the majority of drivers don’t use this method. Try speed dating. I also hear that e-dating services work well too.

Let’s make a new start, you and I, when I travel again tomorrow. Drive in the right lane. Don’t cut me off. And please, don’t honk at me unless I do that “HONK HONK” thing with my arm.

 

Snow

I have many wonderful memories involving snow. I can’t really remember ever having to drive in the snow, however. Tomorrow, I think I may get my first real snow drive. I’m in North Carolina on sales calls and it’s snowing (if that weren’t already abundantly clear from the three other times I’ve mentioned snow in as many sentences…), which is lovely, if also very very cold. Still, I’m wearing flip flops in my hotel room.

Anyway, if I were the poetic type, I’d post a poem about driving in the Smokey Mountains in January while a light snow dusts my windshield and accumulates on the shoulder. But I’m not, so I’ll just let you picture it and be jealous.  I’ll let you know if I make it through without totalling my car. Fingers crossed.