Growing up, I had a very well earned "dumb blonde" reputation. Seriously. There were a lot of things I didn't know, that I should have known and the parents didn't necessarily teach me, and when I ran into them in life, I looked like a damn fool in front of everyone. I'm talking things that everyone else on the planet learns, probably at the age of six, and yet I somehow did not know them and everyone thought I was an idiot. For example, I did not know it was possible to do dishes without a dishwasher until I got to college. And hell, last week I realized I had no idea how one cuts an avocado.

Now, I've gotten better since high school--it's a weird thing to remember occasionally that I used to be a total idiot at so many things. But some days, there are moments. Like at my job, I pretty much have a "dumb blonde" moment of "apparently I was supposed to know how to do this and seriously, I've never, ever heard of it before" at least several times a day. That's....fun.

The plan last night was to pick up L at the airport after I got out of the CC. However, there was bad weather at the airport for her connecting flight, so she ended up spending the night there and had booked another flight to get home during the day. She said not to worry about getting her during work hours because then she could take the bus.. Later this morning I got e-mail from her saying that she was flying in around 7:40 p.m. and if I wasn't teaching tonight, could I come get her? Sure.

(I was booked to teach at the CC on Wednesdays during the summer months ago by the outgoing manager. There was apparently some confusion between the incoming and outcoming managers at my volunteer job--the other mosaic instructor and I have ah, similarly named classes, we just do it with different material--and he booked her for it instead. I had wondered why I hadn't gotten a confirmation the class was running.... Oh well, I don't get paid so I don't really care if I teach or not! Fun if I do, I'll go lift weights at the gym if I don't.)

Anyway, after lifting weights I drove over to pick her up. It was nice to get to the airport in broad daylight (albeit in "sunset hitting at just the wrong angle for vision" at points), because the last time I went, I had a major boner moment. I was about to turn left as per the sign to go to the terminal, and as I was turning in I saw a sign that said WRONG WAY. I freaked out, thinking I was going the wrong way...and then ended up veering into bad territory and getting all turned around and going the actual wrong way, and ended up spitting out at the BUS pickup area of Terminal B rather than the car pickup area. Then I had a lot of busses honking at me, and I couldn't get in the other way and had to call L screaming over the bus honkings to go over here instead. FUN TIMES.

This time, however, I turned left at the same intersection and saw that damn sign and thought, "Geez, why is this here?!" Because it turned out that WAS the right direction back to the terminal--so why is that sign at just the wrong angle to make me think I'm going to get myself killed? And yet, I don't remember noticing said sign any other time I'd been in the airport at night....

So anyway, I did find the other terminal and got L and then heard the whole saga... she'd mixed up the arrival time and departure time on her new ticket (I think she hadn't actually gotten a piece of paper either) and got to the airport after the plane had left. (Plus she was functioning on sleep deprivation, since the alarm at her hotel went off.) Then the standby plane she was shooting for, well, she was one person away from getting on it. Finally she arrived here on a fourth plane and was probably about to keel over. I told her that kind of thing was something I would totally end up doing.

By the time we got to my place to drop me off and hand her back the keys, she started staring at the front right tire. "Uh, it's flat."
"It is? I thought it looked a little funny, but figured it was just me...." To be fair, on the fourth of July we saw a car with a really flat tire driving along by where we were and it was very loudly a Flat Tire. I thought the car would sound like that if it was flat! But no, it drove along fine. L was all, do I need to change the tire before I go home, and I was all, "it just drove for an hour and was fine, I think it can make it to your house."

Oh well, I guess that'll be one of the things I need to learn.

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