The Outrage!

I just tried to order a margarita with my lunch and was told the bar is closed! Did you ever hear of such an absurd thing? It is the middle of the day, and I'm stuck in a hotel for the next two hours. I should be drunk.

Originally, I was supposed to leave yesterday evening, but I ensickened my boss with my strep infection, and she wasn't able to come to Austin today to take care of some administration with state funding. She asked me to stick around to substitute for her, but the meeting got done several hours early.

I was really looking forward to taunting the internet with the fact I was sipping margaritas at noon on a Wednesday, but this stupid hotel thwarted me. You can bet if I was at the airport right now, I wouldn't be having this problem. Last time I was at an airport bar in the middle of the day, I ordered a gin and tonic and then had to request extra tonic because the gin fumes alone were curling my eyelashes.

Laundry Disability

For some reason, I can not successfully manage my laundry. Sometimes I wash a load but neglect to put it in the dryer, resulting in scorched panties in the microwave. Other times I put laundry in the dryer but forget to actually turn the dryer on. I recently attended a doctor's appointment wearing The Husband's pants because every single pair of pants I owned were soaking wet, and they're too big to stick in the microwave.

My biggest challenge seems to be in operating the washing machine. Nine times out of ten I load the clothes, turn on the water, add detergent, and walk away, overlooking the all-important step of closing the lid. I'm sure once I complete the laundry, my clothes are exceptionally clean because they usually spend at least an hour soaking before I realize the washing machine is strangely quiet.

However, when I have a plane to catch, the thoroughness of the soaking is not as important as actually having clean clothes to put on my body to make it out the door on time, which is why I ended up wearing clammy, soggy jeans on my plane ride to Austin while toting a suitcase full of damp panties.

The damp panties ended up not being as bad as what did NOT make it into my suitcase, but I'll have to gripe about that later.

Advice Martha Stewart Won't Give You

I tend to be less diligent than I should be at getting laundry done. Yesterday evening I put a load in the washer but forgot to put it in the dryer before I went to bed. So, this morning I put the clothes in the dryer when I woke up, but they were still damp when it was time to leave for work. The undiligentness of my laundry-doing meant that the only clean pairs of underwear I had were in that load of laundry, and there was no way in hell I was putting on moist drawers. If you find yourself in this situation, I have a few words of advice for you:

1. A microwave oven dries damp underwear quickly and thoroughly.

2. Five minutes is evidently too long to cook your underwear in the microwave.

3. A little baking soda and lemon juice will clean the smell of scorched underwear right out of your microwave oven.

Story time with Grandpa

My grandpa told me this story when I was really little, and sometimes it pops into my head at the strangest times.

Once there was a little girl who had a jolly old grandfather with a long gray beard. One day the little girl asked her grandfather, "When you go to sleep at night, Grandfather, do you tuck your beard under the covers with you, or do you keep it on top of the blankets?"

The grandfather realized he really wasn't sure. He never thought about it before. So, he told the little girl that he would pay attention when he went to bed that night and tell her the next day.

That night, as the grandfather settled into bed, he tucked his beard under the covers. That didn't feel comfortable, so he thought he must leave his beard on top of the covers at night. However, when he untucked his beard, that didn't feel right either. He spent all night tucking and untucking his beard, trying in vain to remember where he usually kept his beard while he was sleeping.

He didn't sleep a wink that night, or any other night ever again, until he finally died.