Giant Mistakes

Have I really not blogged since the airport in Barcelona? Haven't even recounted the One Direction concert that has become my most unashamedly shameful moment in life? I haven't talked about my most recent trip to Disneyland and how I rode Splash Mountain with a poncho? Haven't discussed the musings of being a third year teacher, which is supposed to be "easier" than previous years?

I could talk briefly about the Tough Mudder. How fun it was. How the go-pro I was so careful with and toted around the entire 11 miles ended up not recording more than the first .5 miles of the course. Or how when we quickly rinsed off afterwards in the community garden-hose hall, I apparently missed a spot, then barely made my flight and rode all the way back to SFO with mud all over my ears.

There could be more poorly-written and grammatically-aggravating paragraphs about the past few months but there was just one story I couldn't let myself forget— and what is this blog than a place for a collection of stories? (Okay seriously, enough with the rhetorical questions.)

The Giants won the World Series on Wednesday night and I reacted like a small child.

When our outfielders made the mistake of missing the ball and allowing a boy in blue to land on third with a triple, I left the room. I actually left before he even rounded first. I still haven't seen the whole play. I watched the final out by poking my head around the corner and covering my mouth with my Giants scarf— a ritual which I had found to really bring the mojo. When we won I jumped like a kid. I screamed like a kid. And I ran into the middle of our court and jumped and screamed like a kid. It was absurd.

I had been watching at my parents house (also mojo related) with several friends who were also jumping, etc. One of them proposed we go straight to Dick's Sporting Goods since they would surely have the brand new paraphernalia. We drove there, blasting Taylor Swift and waving my scarf out the window. In retrospect I don't know if I was in any condition to be driving.. Is Driving Under the Influence of Excitement a thing?

When we got there, we rushed into the store with another 100 or so people. There were clothes everywhere. The poor Dick's Sporting Goods employees had been bringing things out since the very moment that Pablo Sandoval's bum hit the ground in foul territory for out #3.

Clothes everywhere. 

It was like a movie. Like a dog digging in dirt, people were throwing shirts behind them looking for the right sizes for themselves, their daughters, their sons, and their fish. There were more plastic carts of clothes than tables of clothes. The carts sat there as the judgmental indicator that we were all bordering on barbaric. "Really? You won't even let this crap make it to a table before you mob?"

After nearly one whole hour, hundreds of shirts tossed and tried-on, all of us had made our decisions and were ready to go. Typically, after driving somewhere, "ready to go" means you reach assuredly for your keys. I was the driver, so I did. And my keys were not where they were supposed to be. My keys were nowhere near me.

I looked around the store with wide eyes. I had covered about a quarter-mile of ground in the past hour, and worse, recall the PILES of clothes everywhere. I'd visited each of them. Twice. My friends graciously pretended they weren't annoyed and started searching for the needle in the black and orange haystacks. It was a school night after all and we wanted to try and get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

We searched hopelessly on top of, in the middle of, and at the bottom of each pile. After only about 15 minutes, I saw my friend Casey with his arm in the air, my keys hanging triumphantly from his index finger. At this point, each customer and employee in the store knew I was "the girl looking for keys". Everyone's quest for the right size t-shirt had also become the quest for granting me the ability to leave. Casey had won. "WHAT! Where were they!?" I called to him over about 50 people.

..........

"They were IN your ignition," he called back louder than I thought was necessary given the present company.

Without speaking, laughing, crying, or reacting at all— I left the store as quickly as possible in embarrassment. Apparently after I'd left there were some laughs on my behalf and my friends then rejoined me in the parking lot where I too was now keeled over in laughter. I'm still trying to process how I could have forgotten the most basic of tasks in regards to driving. When I got to Dick's Sporting Goods, I had parked, and then had ceased to be a responsible human. Thank goodness there weren't any bitter A's fans around to prey on excited Giants-fan zombies— they could have driven off with an Acura.

After having to reset a 10+ year clock, I have now successfully removed my keys from the ignition for the past 4 days.