Don't Tell The Internet You Plan to Sleep In

Friday night I went to bed fairly early for me. 10 p.m., and I had finally succumbed to the hype and downloaded "Water for Elephants". I'd read the sample on the Kindle and it drew me enough that I paid the entirely reasonable $6.29 for the entire book. I was looking forward to reading until I fell asleep, and was thrilled to realize that I had no need to set my alarm for the next day. In fact, I updated my facebook with this status:

I just realized something - I do not have to set my alarm for tomorrow morning. I'm so excited that I might slip Saturday some tongue.

Yeah, Irreverant, that's me. I read until I fell asleep. About 10:12, lol.

And I woke in complete and utter disorentation at 5:17, when my husband's %&$*#!!! alarm went off. And again at 5:27, when the snooze went off. And again at 6, when Mackenzie came in the room in an utter panic.

"GET UP!  I've got to be at forensics competition downtown by 7:45! You've got to drive me!"

Yeah. A forensics competition that wasn't on the calendar, that she'd asked my husband to take her to, and no one had mentioned to me. He rolled over, muttered I'm too tired to move, you need to take her, and went promptly back to sleep. I climbed out of bed VERY BEGRUDGINGLY, made some coffee and a bagel and decided that I was taking my husbands company car to drive in. I was in a bad mood, and I decided that I deserved to drive a nice car - and make no bones about it, it's a 2011 Challenger with a Hemi - it's a NICE muscle car. Parents aren't allowed to stay, so she just needed to be dropped off, and my saint of a mother was going to pick her up.

But had I not gotten out of bed, I wouldn't have had a lovely chat with Mackenzie, who was nervous about her competition. I wouldn't have seen the sun rise, a lovely sight after five straight days of rain, and I wouldn't have heard her dramatic piece. I really know nothing about forensics, and she's apparently very good at it, and was slated to compete in two events -  a dramatic multi person something or another, and an impromptu, in which she'd have four minutes and one notecard to prepare. We got there in plenty of time, meeting the coaches in the parking lot and I dropped her in very capable hands and drove off.

I did snap a picture as she was jumping out of the car. This is what's known as the Mom! Come on, I don't have time for this but I'm going to humor you look in our house.

I cranked the music and was finally enjoying the fact that I was up so, so early and started to get back on the highway, except that I didn't know where I was and got on the highway going in the wrong direction. Dumb Move #1. I decided to try to cross multiple lanes in order to take the exit, and when I did so, I hit the shift. Dumb move #2.

Which sent the car into manual setting - this car can either be driven as an automatic or a clutchless manual, and I'd dropped it into second when I'd turned - and I wasn't entirely sure of how to get back into automatic mode. I had a vague memory of my husband doing the same thing while we were driving and I seemed to remember that he'd shifted into neutral to override it. I was afraid that if I dropped in into neutral while I was driving that I'd drop the transmission in the middle of the road. Dumb move #3.

Yeah, I know. I'm not so full of brains OR common sense this early in the morning. So I hand shifted until I got off the highway and put the car into neutral. And then it went straight back to drive, just like I knew it would.

All I know is, I'm NEVER bragging about sleeping in again.

She did win second place in the Impromtu category, beating out a metric ton of other kids, as she spoke for more than 3 minutes on How to catch a butterfy with a hat.

Comments

[Katherine]

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME WIN!! Wooo hoooo!!!

My daughter woke me up Sat at three a.m.... then six a.m. I had less than five hours sleep total. I was NOT happy about being up. BUT... since promised a beach walk, we went "before coffee" as she reminded me. I dragged myself in the freezing wind to the beach and there we were, the ONLY ONES THERE. Except for the hundreds of dolphins swimming down the coast, the pelicans, the deer, the sun's rays shooting through the sky... yup, it was worth it!

[Laura H]

I feel you! My hubby is now on a totally different time-zone than the state in which we live (joys of a railroad job LOL) and it is astonishingly hard to adjust to! You'd think his being an hour ahead would be simple math. Nope.

WTG to Mackenzie! That's awesome :)

[HolyMama!]

yea for her!!! i couldn't talk for 3 seconds on how to catch a butterfly with a hat. unless it counts if you're all "whAT?! WHY WOULD I DO THAT?!" and then i could probably swing it.

[PamL]

I loved Water for Elephants- great story and I love how it's written as a flashback. I read it after my nephew's girlfriend posted on Facebook that she loved it and couldn't wait to see it in the theater. It had a bit too much sexy stuff in it for me...but I did read the whole thing. In fact when I told my nephew that I was reading it, he got that "deer in the headlights" look and tried in a nice way to tell me it was a little bit racy. ha ha, like a married woman with 6 kids doesn't know anything about it! I have him fooled! :)

[Wendy]

I thought I was the last person who hadn't read that book, and I read it this past weekend (two pages at a time, which is all I get to do uninterrupted.) It was good but I did not LOVE LOVE LOVE it.