Oh, What a Weekend . . . Shopping, Ditches, and Tequila

Saturday morning/afternoon I woke in a haze - my head was pounding, my body hurt, and the events from the night before were a little blurry. I felt like I had spent the night in a ditch. Oh wait, I did. Literally!

Lets start with Friday - Well, Friday, I was supposed to babysit for my little cousin Adrienne. I'd been babysitting for the past couple of days. It was fun. But, after a couple days of it, I wasn't disappointed when Wendy called to cancel me for Friday. I was babied out and had been thoroughly reminded why I won't be having children for many many years. Not to say that I don't adore babies, particularly Adrienne, I just can't handle them full-time right now. So, with my day suddenly freed up, and still feeling a little unloved, I decided to seek some therapy through shopping. And, I shopped, and shopped, and shopped. I have no idea how much money I spent, but I really really got ridiculous. I just bought whatever my little heart desired.

After my big day of shopping, I headed home to pack and get ready to go down and visit my SAS friend Patti at Bradley University for the weekend. It's about two and a half hours from me. Well, it poured my whole way there. When I was about twenty miles from her apartment, the rain turned to hail. I thought to myself, "Man, it would suck to get into an accident right now. I'd better slow down and be careful." Of course what happens the next moment - the wind picks up my car and I start swaying, then before I know it, I'm fishtailing across a lane of traffic praying that I don't go into the ditch. And then it happened - I went into the ditch and hit a tree on my passenger side. I was just completely stupified for a minute. I couldn't believe I had really driven into a ditch. fIt was scary and funny at the same time - it's such a bad cliche. Just then, Patti called to see where I was. I'm sure she was surprised when I said, "In a ditch."

I trekked out in the sleet and mud in my heals to see what damage there was to my car. It was dark, so I couldn't see too much. But, the side of my car was smoking and the ground effects on my passenger side were broken and battered. I really didn't know what to do or exactly where I was. I thought for a minute that maybe I could just drive my car out of the ditch and be on my way. No such luck. It turned on and allowed me to back away from the tree, but then it got stuck in the mud. So, I called the number on my roadside assistance sticker (which was expired). The lady was very friendly and said that a tow truck would be there for me in half an hour.

After two hours of sitting in the ditch and several rescue attempts by various teams of firefighters, paramedics, and police officers, a tow truck (not the one I had called) finally showed up and towed me to a shop near Patti's apartment. I had hoped that maybe the damage was only cosmetic and I'd be able to drive it home, but it turned out that my passenger side tire was in pretty bad shape, which made the car undriveable. So, I left my car at the shop and the tow truck driver was nice enough to drive me over to Patti's. It was midnight before I got there, but I was running on adrenalin and dying to start partying. So, after chugging the biggest, strongest drink in my life and telling my sad story of being stuck in the ditch for two hours, we headed out to the Peoria bars. Since it was a shitty night out, the bars weren't very crowded. But, we had a good time anyways.

On Saturday, I spent a lot of the early afternoon on the phone figuring out exactly what I was going to do with my car. I ended up deciding that I was going to have it towed back to Chicago and have my insurance adjuster look at it there and have it fixed there. It was going to cost me $400 on top of the $175 that I'd already paid for the previous tow, but I figured that it was the best solution. Well, my step dad just insisted that he would come and tow my car home for me. So, it ended up that I just had to rent a car carrier and he and my cousin came down and got me on Sunday.

Saturday afternoon we had lunch, Patti gave me a tour around campus, and we watched Coyote Ugly (which I loved!!!). Then we started drinking again and getting ready to go out. Some of Patti's friends came over and we all went out. Much tequila and fun was had! And, boy did one of Patti's cute engineering friends make me feel more loved - enough said. Another awesome thing that happened Saturday night is that some of our (Patti's and mine) close SAS girlfriends from California got together for a party and we talked to them on the phone late at night. I talked to Noel and Lauren. It was so so so nice talking to them. I was so excited! It makes me miss them so so much though.

Sunday morning came much too quickly and again I woke up feeling like I had been in a ditch the night before. Only this time, it was really just the liquor. My step-dad and cousin showed up and we had lunch and drinks before heading back home. It was actually really nice. I just curled up in the back seat with my pillow and blanket and took a nap. Before I knew it, we were home. My uncle, who does body work, came over and took a look at my car. He said that it doesn't look like I did too much more than $800 worth of damage. It's almost a shame that I already filed a claim with the insurance considering I have a $500 deductible.

Overall, the car in the ditch thing was not a big deal. It could have been better, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse too. I handled it completely calmly and didn't let it ruin my weekend at all. I was sad to leave Patti so quickly. I felt like I barely spent any time there at all. I wish that I wasn't leaving for Argentina so soon. I'd love to go back and visit her again. It was so nice to see her.

Speaking of Argentina . . . . ummmm, I'm leaving a week from tomorrow!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am so so so so so so so so not even close to ready. I might be able to borrow a car this week. Otherwise, that's going to make it extra fun to try to prepare. The Argentian consulate still has my passport, I still need to work out things at school, haven't made much progress on packing . . . Haha. I think it will be fun this way - not having it all perfectly planned. Just going with it . . . I think things are about to get interesting!

Well, tah tah for now . . .