Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Signs that I Might have been Lying about my College Degree

Remember how once upon a time I updated this blog? Yeah, me neither. Apparently I'm only capable of consistent blogging when the busyness of my life falls at some specific point in the spectrum between doing nothing but watching HGTV all day every day and being too busy to breathe.

Life right now is leaning toward the latter. Work is busy, play is busy, future planning is busy, and as a result, my brain frequently take vacations.

Last week I turned the wrong way down a one-way street. In downtown Greenville. During rush hour. I wasn't even talking on the phone or putting on make-up, the two activities which constitute roughly 85% of my drive time, so I have no idea what prompted such an indiotic traffic maneuver at an intersection I drive through/past/around several times a week. I can at least blame part of it on genetics- my dad once drove the wrong way down 5th Avenue in New York City. But the other part? Totally the fault of my absent brain cells. Luckily there's a parking garage right on the corner, which I immediately turned into. Of course, then I was lost, as parking garages are not my spiritual gift and for the life of me I cannot find my way around them.

I once spent thirty minutes looking for my car in a garage in Charlotte. I kept hitting the 'lock' button, and I could hear my car beeping above me, so I'd go up a floor, search, and hit the button again, only to hear the beep below me. And so it continued. The worst part was, there was a middle-aged woman in the same predicament, and we kept awkwardly crossing paths as we circled back and forth around the same three floors for the better part of an hour.

Was I saying something about my brain being scattered? As they say, the proof is in the pudding- or, in this case, the incessant babble about parking garages.

But, like I said, despite work being stressful, I've been playing hard, too. V held our first annual Dip-Off a few weekends ago, in honor of the Seinfeld episode where they discuss one of life's bigegst questions: Why can't dip be a meal? The answer, it turns out, was that party. I consumed my body weight in cream cheese-based spreadables and woke up the next morning with a dip hangover far worse than any caused by alcohol. That, boys and girls, is why dip can't be a meal.

Not only did I eat myself into a food coma that night, but in another stunning display of mental aptitude, I made a complete fool of myself during a rousing game of Catch Phrase, in which I threw out such guesses as "Scandanavia!" for the clues "Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain" and "Whigs! Torries!" for the clues "Red coats, traitors, communism". In my defense, I didn't hear the communism bit- and how does your mind not jump straight to the Revolutionary War when you hear "redcoats?"

The whole thing was reminiscent of the infamous Outburst game of sophomore year when Kristen and I were given the topic "Battle of the Bulge" and started listing off diet fads like South Beach and Atkins, not realizing they were talking about the historic war battle. Oops.

I topped the week off by trying to buy wine at the store on Saturday and realizing I didn't have my ID when the cashier asked for it. I'm pretty sure she thought I was trying to pull a fast one on her, especially since (as I realized later) my hair was in pigtails. Awesome. So I left wine-less and full of anxiety, as I had no clue where my license could be, until hours later, when I remembered that I had taken it out of my wallet and into my jeans pocket the previous Wednesday when Alycia and I went line dancing at the Blind Horse. I'm just glad I was discovered by the teenager at Aldi rather than a cop- probably pulling me over for driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

5 comments:

MTH said...

O bravo, KM, bravo. . . :)

Sushi said...

there is just...too much hilarity here i can't even figure out where to comment. the parking garage bit might be my favorite.

sometimes, karen, it astounds me that you are a real person in my life and not a character i made up, wishing i was friends with.

i love you.

Karen Renee said...

Sushi, I wish I could say I was exaggerating even a little on the parking garage account, but if anything, I'm being conservative in my re-telling...

And ditto on the 'movie-character-in-my-real-life' bit- I wouldn't have known what a lentil was until my twenties if it weren't for you.

Hannah said...

ah hahahaha

Tune said...

Maren Killer! You never told me you have a blog!