Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Muddy Buddies + Sweat + Cops

Where do I even start?

You know those movies that the whole time you are watching them you're all like, "Wow, I love this movie so much; I could watch this for forever." and then in the final stretch, out of nowhere, it somehow has the absolute worst ending you have ever seen in all movie-dom? All that build-up to what could have been something great is brutally massacred by a bad ending. Yeah, welcome to my day today.

This morning started out really good. I filed my taxes.

No, I don't think you understand how big of a deal this is for me.

It's March 23... and I filed my taxes.

Recap: I got 2009's tax return a few months ago in December when I finally filed for them. I know, I know... why on earth would I put off getting free money?! Well, I feel as though I would lack consistency if I didn't procrastinate in all aspects of my life (future employers: just gloss over that last sentence) so naturally, I had put it off... but not today... today was MY day!

So I filed all my forms (correction: some incredible girl did it for me) and now my return is en route and on it's way to me in two weeks. Score.

We're off to a good start, no?

Wait, it gets even better (before it gets horribly tragic.)

My friend Trina and I have been planning a Modern Family marathon night for quite some time now with a guest list consisting of: Muddy Buddies, sea salt dark chocolates, and even a little chocolate covered butter toffee thrown in for good measure... needless to say it was a crucial break from such a long week - and yes, I know it's only Tuesday.

After our little MF marathon, I decided I needed to run a real marathon just to work off the disturbingly large amount of treats I had just thrown down my gullet; so I hit up the gym afterward.

I ran longer than normal to try and compensate for the previous hours of nonstop snacking. As a result, I came off the treadmill looking like I had just gotten out of the pool. Too tired to lift, I jumped in my car and headed home.

As mentioned before, I don't handle dumb people driving on the road very well at all.  I was on the freeway with not a soul on the road when someone drifted in from the on-ramp and creeped right in front of me not even driving up to freeway speeds. I mean, really?! There are two other lanes completely vacant and you have to cut me off?!

I may or may not have tailgated the tinciest bit and then went around them and out of spite didn't use my blinkers as I whipped back in front of him to my rightful place on the freeway. Somehow I felt a little bit better about the situation, but want to know who didn't think it was as clever? How about the cop that had magically come out of stealth mode and was now vigorously tailgating me.

Bad news bears.

We all know how well I do with cops. Just look here, here, or here.

The cop turned on his lights and to make things worse was that the whole freeway was currently under construction so there were no shoulders to be had on the side of the freeway at all. So there I am cruising along, America's Most Wanted high speed chase style, because I had nowhere to pull off to the side of the road. Never a good thing.

After about a minute I finally come up to an emergency pull off area and pull over.

Okay, now is not the time nor the place to tell you about my current car situation... that's a blog entry all on it's own... but suffice it to say my car was created before I was, and bless it's heart, has had a real hard time trying to bring sexy back with its red felt interior.

So let me paint you a picture: There I am sitting in my car which is pulled off to the side of some makeshift emergency shoulder with semis screaming by and completely rattling my car as they go by. Not to mention I am sitting there absolutely drenched in sweat, and because of my sweatiness I have completely fogged up all of my car windows.

Things be lookin' bleak to say the least... bleak, and super shady.

Out of habit, in the spirit of being pulled over, I roll down my driver's side window and wait for the cop to come. Might I add, rolling down the window in my car is quite the feat. It literally averages about 12-13 seconds per 1/2 inch just to roll down. Oh, and let's not forget the sound that it makes as the window desperately tries to move up or down which sounds probably sounds like what would happen if you caught a leprechaun and gave it an indian rug burn until he started to cry.

The officer came to the passenger side instead and tapped on my window. So I hit the button and pathetically watch as the window creeps down uber slow as if it were trying to make this encounter as dramatic and awkward as possible. Success.

After probably twenty seconds and only having the window go down like an inch, I let up on the button as the cop peers in and suspiciously asks through the steamed up windows, "Can you roll down the window a little more." I chimed in with a, "Yeah, this might take a minute though." as I hit the button again and watched the window slowly, oh so slowly, creak past the cops eyes, to his nose, then to his mouth which probably took another minute to do.

The cop looked in and gave me the saddest look that I have ever received from a cop before, and he asked for my drivers license which coincidentally was in my trunk in my gym bag. I told him that it was in my wallet which was back in the trunk and that I just came from the gym (trying to elude to the reason of my sweatiness; two birds, one stone.) There was a long pause where I could tangibly feel his regret in pulling me over in the first place, then he asked, "Could you please get it?"

I looked over to my right out the driver's window as a semi passed and shook my car again, I looked back at the cop with equally matched sad eyes and asked, "Um, like right now?!" I was tempted to just give him my keys and let him get it for me while he was out and about in the danger free zone, but no... what started as a little pull over now became a real life game of life or death Frogger. So with a little coaching from the peanut gallery and a lot of faith, I bolted out between cars passing and got him my stupid license and expired insurance card out of my trunk.

Also, in my trunk was a giant ziplock baggie of muddy buddy left overs from earlier, which in all honesty probably looked like a giant bag of cocaine conveniently hidden in my trunk.

The kicker? I don't think my car is currently registered. Whoops. So as he gets back into his car, and I maneuver back into mine with my mad Frogger skills, I sit and wait as I watched police car, after police car line up behind me. Each trying to move forward and make room for the other. "Oh swell, this is the day I go to jail.", I thought to myself while being blinded by at least two of the cop's spotlights behind me. I waited there for probably twenty minutes until the two other police cars drove away and then my officer came back to the door and gave me my license and expired insurance card and said, "I'm going to go easy on you tonight and let you off with a warning."

Excuse me?! A warning?!  What the?  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying the miracle of it all... but, I have been pulled over for a lot less (and not to mention in situations where it actually appeared that I owned and had not stolen the vehicle) and yet somehow ended up getting a ticket.

I think we can all agree on at least one thing... it's a spring equinox miracle!

Morals of Post:

  •  ______________________________________________.
     (Ad-lib your own moral of the post in the comments...)

     I'm still a little speechless. 

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Blog for a Year. Check.

Happy one year anniversary... um, to me.

My blog is a year old! 

One sunday, a year ago, I drove out to the lake for a couple of hours and while I was out there I discovered the wonderful world of blogging via my iPhone. 

I had always thought that blogs consisted of nothing more than picture after picture of infants (some cute, most not) documenting - in real time - every move they made. (Tiff this excludes you because I often blog stalk you to see your ridiculously cute kid, and kind of wish you had more pictures up... but to EVERYONE else... less is more.) 

Being infant-less and all, I didn't think that blogging was my steez nor really up my alley, but...

that all changed. 

I happened across two blogs that had me laughing and made me realize that even those sans offspring could be a good time.

They definitely inspired me to get my blog on, and they became my 'blogparents', if you will... kinda like real life godparents, except for the fact that they don't send money on my birthday. I'm working on that. 

So to my 'blogfather' Kevin and to my 'blogmother' Una... this one year shout out goes to you!
 
To highlight a year of Hawkward Moments, here's a a few to freshen up on or to check out if you're new around these parts:

1. Mazda, Why?     

2. Heartbreak Hoopers     


4. WebMD    






If any of these or any others have stood out to you, drop a comment; I would love to hear what ones you've liked!

Moral of Post:
  • I'm actually going to try and write more frequently without the lag between posts - so to all of you that are "closet followers"... knock it off.  It's time to prove your love (you know who you are) Go ahead and follow, spread the word, drop a comment... all of which will help me stick with my goal and hold me accountable to be on the ball and write more.
  • So what was my anniversary present to myself you ask? 

Bliss.

Not shown: the 3 other boxes of Samoas I bought... go ahead, judge. 

Remember when..