A Story for your Tuesday

I've pretty much accepted that life likes has this way of interfering with my plans. 

Example A: When I started my new job, I got out of the last day of training early so I was excited for an afternoon of relaxing and baking. Well, wouldn't that be the day that I was traveling without the GPS, and got lost in back country VA on easily one of the hottest days of the year, practically running on fumes while I aimlessly drove around looking for a gas station. 

Example B: The night I drove home on the rainiest and windiest night ever, excited for the Moroccan Chicken Stew in the Crock Pot, when the transmission blew. Remember that?

So basically, any time I am envisioning a significant and rare chunk of time for being lazy (and most likely eating), God laughs at me and says "No way, Bren. You don't get out enough. I am going to force you to spend more time in society than you would ever want to."

And I say, "But God, I need to get home right away so that I can stalk all my favorite blogs and bake some unhealthy things for me and my man."

I felt that this particular conversation went down on the Thursday before Christmas, where I had a whole day off to myself to finish up my Christmas shopping, clean the house before we left town, and cook an awesome dinner. 

It all started out great. I put on my go-to shopping uniform (leggings, boots, and a sweater) and headed out on a seasonably warm day to World Market, where I had previously fought mile-long lines and was hoping for a less overwhelming experience this time so I could get some awesome gifts. (Side note: that store is awesome.) I spent at least two hours there filling up a shopping cart with things like pretty plates for my Grandma, chocolate covered marshmallows for my sister, a twelve pack of beer from around the world for Ian, and a bottle of chocolate wine. For me. 

When I checked out, and found that maybe I spent a little too much, I pushed the cart through the parking lot to the Toyota, starving and ready to go home and eat, naturally. I dug around my purse for my keychain, and pulled it out only to find the Toyota key not there. No big deal--sometimes it falls off. So I rummaged and rummaged the depths of my bag with one hand, holding the cart that wanted to run away with the other, but had no luck. 

At this point, I was ready to scour the parking lot for a stray key on the ground when I looked in the window and saw that I locked the damn key in the car.

Actual photo. See it sitting there on the seat?

Let me just say, there is pretty much nothing worse than locking your keys in your car. Especially after a particular incident where having AAA would have made life much easier, you were planning to get AAA before heading up to PA for Christmas, and you were now faced with another incident that AAA could have fixed in a snap.

Cursing this irony, I called Ian with the dumb luck that maybe he got out of school early. It was around noon at this point, so I called his office with no answer. 

So there I was, a cart full of stuff that wasn't exactly easy to tote around (what with all that glass and all). I could have gotten flustered, and I sure was getting hungry, so I pushed the cart back up to the store and asked the nice cashier if I could just leave it there for a little bit.

Then, I left my expensive cart of stuff and went to Olive Garden. 

It really all ended well. Yes, sitting at Olive Garden by myself, stuffing my face with salad and breadsticks and then, because why not, Italian Donuts with Chocolate Dipping Sauce, was a little awkward. But Ian called back, ended up getting out of school a little early, and came to rescue me from my Olive Garden and shopping misery. I mean, really--there are worse places to be stranded on a Thursday afternoon.

And that evening, we got AAA.