Wednesday, October 7, 2009

I'm Blond, That's My Excuse

Last night as I staggered through rehearsal dehydrated and exhausted, I laid down the law to my cast. "You have to practice all of the set changes with the backstage lights off because that is how it is going to be during the actual performance." Five minutes later I had to go backstage to grab a prop. As I stepped behind the curtain I couldn't see a thing. It was pitch black. I exclaimed, "Wow, it's REALLY dark back here. How are we going to see to get these sets changed?" Then I stepped forward and the black side curtain hit me right in the face.

When I came home and told Brian about it he laughed and took the opportunity to remind me of a couple of other blond moments I've had over the years.

My freshman year at EIU was also my first year of ever living in a city. I had always lived out in the boonies where there were no amenities and it took 15 minutes to get to the nearest convenience store. Charleston was like heaven to me. I could walk to a TCBY or a McDonalds. Better yet I could have Chinese food, pizza or sub sandwiches delivered right to my dorm room. It was unbelievable!!! The first time I ordered pizza from Dominoes the delivery guy appeared at my room 20 minutes later and I gave him my $12 payment. He started to walk away, but since I was still standing there he said, "Do you want your change back?" Well, duh. "Yes," I said in a tone that let him know I was not going to be fleeced by a measly pizza delivery boy. So he rolled his eyes, handed me my $1.37 and stalked off. It wasn't until several weeks later when my roommate ordered a pizza and gave the delivery guy a tip that I realized what I had done.

Apparently I didn't learn much in college because four years later......

When I was teaching high school Spanish we occasionally had cooking days where we would try out typical Mexican or Spanish food. I had to buy a whole case of tortilla chips so I decided to try out Aldi for the first time and see if I could get them cheap. I pulled in to the parking lot and started walking to the front door. A man approached me and offered me his cart. I said thank you and started to take it from him, but he just stood there with his hand out. He was asking me to PAY him for the cart! I couldn't believe it. I told him no thanks and haughtily walked in to the store. When I got inside I couldn't find any carts anywhere so I had to struggle through the store carrying arm loads of tortilla chips and two liter bottles of soda. When I finally got to the checkout line I discovered that I had to BUY the paper bags. Good grief! And where were all of the carts? Everyone else had one. That's when I stepped outside and saw the giant row of carts....all tethered together by chains that could only be unlocked by shoving a quarter in to the slot. I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.

2 comments:

Deena said...

I'm totally with you on the Aldi's thing. I went with my mom (I don't shop there, even though I probably should) and a woman offered me her cart in the parking lot. I said thank you. My mom asked if I had given her a quarter, then ran after her to square us up. lol It's a good concept.

Cainan & Ryker said...

I shop there all the time now and I love it. I just wasn't used to the system back then. Now I feel all good about myself when I let someone have a cart for free. :)