sufficient

The worst was probably my junior year in high school when my friend Holly and I went on a weekend college visit to Wake Forest. I drove us up there on Friday afternoon. Wake is a pretty small campus and not that car-friendly, so I parked my car in a small lot on a corner of campus and we walked to the dorms we were staying in for the night. I made mental notes about what the parking lot looked like and how we were walking so that we'd get back the next day: about 4 rows of cars, small hill down to the street, we took a left out of the lot and then a right after not too long. Holly and I went about our visit and did not return to the car until about noon on Saturday. Walked out of the dorm, took a left and then a right, arrived in a small parking lot with a hill going down to the street on the corner of campus. Unfortunately, my car wasn't there. At the time, my car was one of the top 5 most stolen cars, so I immediately assumed it had been stolen. Being a very responsible 17 year old, the car also had my jacket with my parents credit cards in the pockets inside. I don't remember the exact sequence of events any longer, but we somehow got in touch with campus police and my parents. The police put out an APB on my car and my mom started calling to have credit cards cancelled while my dad hopped in the car and started driving to Winston-Salem to pick us up. And Holly and I rode with the police officer back to the dorm I had stayed in to wait on my parents there. 

On the way, we drove the outskirts of campus. And as I looked out the windows, on a corner of campus, in a small parking lot with a hill down to the street, I saw my car. Ooops. I have no recollection of how I conveyed this to the police officer. I'm guessing relief overwhelmed any sense of embarrassment. And so we set the process in reverse: called off the APB, called my parents all over again, stopped my dad (the advantage to having had a car phone in 1994). Holly and I hopped in the car and drove back to Raleigh, swearing never to tell ANY of our friends how dumb we had been. And we didn't for years. 

Pretty sure I did the blondest thing I've done since then this morning. A week before Christmas, I decided to fly home and bought a plane ticket with a 6:15am return flight to Nashville. I arranged for my roommate to pick me up upon my return Tuesday morning and once I got home I made plans for today. This morning when I got up, I tried to check in for my flight but it wouldn't let me. Given the weather, I checked to see if it was already cancelled or delayed, but it wasn't. So then I checked my reservation to make sure I had the time right. Yep, I had the time right, but not the day. My flight had been at 6:15 this morning and arrived in Nashville 2 hours before I tried to check in for it. 

Thankfully, I found a (relatively) cheap flight for this afternoon, but boy, am I feeling blond.