I've given up on the Regionals post. It just isn't coming, and it was so long ago that I don't really feel inspired anymore. If you want more details I can email you or something.
Today was my journey to the outlet mall with Sarah, Paula Lou, and Christy. This was our big plan since a few weeks ago. There was a bit of drama regarding drivers, but in the end I drove. We had plans to set off at 8, and we left pretty on schedule, around 8:20. I forgot to put earrings in though, so I had to go back and do that, lest it bother me the whole day. anyway, it was raining quite hard for the whole drive, so that wasn't cool. I'd gotten my CD converter thingie though, so we were serenaded by the Pirates of the Caribbean music and then the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack for most of the ride.
Sarah, though she is one of my dear friends, is THE WORST BACKSEAT DRIVER EVER!! due to this fact, she was in the back with christy, and Paula lou was my navigator. However, in my mirror I could see her huffing as I didn't pass a slower driver ahead of me. I saw her glance behind us and mutter ahemPASSahem. I figured it would be good to humor her, and started to do so. Paula did a headcheck for me, and goes "Erika, theres a car..." I had just seen Sarah check, so I said that she was wrong, there was no car. As I was saying this I checked, and there WAS, in fact, a car about 2 cm away from me. After bellowing at Sarah for telling me to pass when it wasn't SAFE, because OBVIOUSLY she should have known better, this is ERIKA, we recovered and made it to Birch Run a little after 10.
We all needed to use the bathroom pretty badly by then. In fact, Sarah was worried about getting a UTI (lol, DAN!!). Paula, who apparently was hungry, started asking about lunch right about then, but we ignored her and went on our way. We shopped for awhile, until Paula's cries of hunger were not to be ignored any longer. We went in search of Chinese, and found a Beijing Express to eat at. It should be duely noted that Christy wanted a salad for lunch, and Sarah doesn't like chinese that much. Despite this, or maybe because of it, we took about 3 hours to decide what we wanted to eat. The poor guy probably wanted to kill us!! Lunch was ok...i like the stuff in the mall better though.
By that time both Sarah and I were carrying bags from Gap and Rue 21. They do have pretty good sales around the outlets apparently. We went to Aero, AE, PacSun, and a whole bunch of other places. Paula was tired of shopping by about 2, but once again we ignored her. We talked Sarah and Christy into trying on some truly horrible dresses on at Bebe. We also took one of the infamous feet pictures at a shoestore. PacSun found us in huge sunglasses and cowboy hats laughing our heads off. We only got yelled at once. We were in Bath and Body, and they had some really cute nailpolish. Obviously we had to try it on, and while we were oohing and ahhing over the pretty colors, we were accosted by the saleslady. She wanted to know if we were using testers. We looked at her blankly, so she clarified "it would say TRY ME if it was a tester" . we assured her that were were only looking, and hastily made our retreat. Oh, and we looked for ducks for john, but sadly there were none;-) I ended up with a whole passel of t-shirts, a pair of khakis, a dress, a church outfit, and a bathing suit by the end of the excursion, which was around 5.
We sat in Tommy for awhile, trying to decide what to do next. I gave them their options: a) to simply stay all night, just pitch a tent, so we wouldn't have to move b) leave, and eat supper at somewhere on the way home c) eat supper then, and drive straight home or d) not eat at all. We ended up choosing b, which was our ultimate downfall (note use of foreshadowing). We crammed ourselves back into the car and turned on Brian Regan. I was laughing so hard a few times that I could barely drive. However, I calmed down, unfortunately it was to a near sleeping state. After I swerved a few times, Paula proclaimed it time for supper, so we got off at the somethingorother lake exit and pulled into a McDonalds/Mobil gas station.
As we unfolded ourselves from the confines of the car, Paula told me that she'd locked the doors, I just needed to close mine. My mom has this THING about me locking my doors, shes convinced that someone wants to stow away in my back seat and abduct me or something. Because of this, I always turn my car off, put my keys in my purse, and hit the lock button. I was still half asleep-ish, and I merely nodded at Paula, got out, and closed my door. As I walked to the front of the car and noticed my lights were still on, I realized my terrible error. I'D LEFT THE CAR RUNNING AND THE DOORS WERE LOCKED!! This realization struck me in a very hard way. I was NOT happy to say the least, nor were any of my passengers.
We looked at one another in panic. we were an hour away from home...there wasn't anyone in the near vicinity to rescue us. We entered the gas station and asked if there was a hanger we could use to make the door unlock. Sarah and Paula had both seen it done, and therefore thought they would be able to duplicate the procedure. I informed them that I'd SEEN people perform surgery, but that didn't I mean I was going to go cut some person open!! They told me to stop being such a spazz. After a bit of hassle, we got our hanger. We trooped back outside, where it should be noted that it was about 15 degrees with the VERY cold wind. When my cohorts had seen the door being opened, had been by guys. It was somewhere around then that we realized that we are NOT, in fact, guys. We weren't strong enough to get the door pried open enough to cram the coat hanger down it. I called a whole bunch of guys, and was finally got ahold of Jesse, who said to try to pry it more yadda yadda.
Our approach obviously wasn't working, so we asked a big strong looking guy in one of those blue workers jumpsuit things who was about to enter the gas station to help us. After buying a 6 pack of beer (to help him be strong perhaps?) he came out and helped us pry the door open. He was very nice, cramming practically his whole hand in while sarah tried to get the hanger to push the button. Unfortunately, the hanger wasn't very stable and kept bending. After repeated unfruitful attempts, we grew more and more discouraged. Finally, some other guy came over laaaaaaaughing his head off. We forgave him that minor misdeed due to the fact that he carried with him a wedge and a thingie to use to push the button. He got us into the car in less than a minute. After profuse praise and thanksgiving to both men, we went into McDonalds and got our supper about 45 minutes AFTER we started out to do so.
Back on the road, I was now faaaaaaar from tired. We were wired with the oodles of candy I'd purchased for the occasion, plus the incredulity of managing to lock the keys in. I was trying to eat one of my pies when I swerved slightly and ran over the rumble strips. I was pretty sure I was going to go deaf from the screams that came to my ears from the back seat. I assured them that I was merely testing the rumble strips to be sure they still worked. I don't think the girls were comforted. Also, it was brought to my attention that I speed up and slow down continually, which apparently isn't the thing to do. Sarah said something about throttling me I'm pretty sure. We had a blast the last 45 minutes of the ride. We made it home at 8:01...we'd been shooting for 8:00 even, but close enough:-)
All in all, it was a great day. Not so great events of last night were overshadowed by the extreme fun, laughs, and memories made over the 12 hours we spent together. I'm jinxed when it comes to driving, but at least I didn't end up in Big Rapids today. There was never a dull moment, between trying on clothes, eating candy, taking pictures, and lauuuuuuughing like insane people. It was a great way to end spring break!!
