A Post with Chapters
The Part Where I Bit It At the Marriott
The Part Where I had to go to Bagdad, KY
The Part Where My Sister is a Freak of Nature
The Part Where Buffalo Flavored Bugles Suck
At 7:30 AM bright and early on Friday, I went to checkout of the hotel I was staying at in Chattanooga. I had a 5.5 hour drive ahead of me as I was headed to Bagdad, Kentucky for work (more on that later). I was staying in a two story Marriott with no elevator (I feel like someone didn't think that one through).
As I was coming down the stairs with all of my luggage, my ankle, which apparently couldn't handle one more step, rolled and I tumbled down the stairs onto a landing. I'm sure it looked cool. It felt cool. In addition to the awesome points I was earning, there was a disconcerting popping noise that came from the general vicinity of my right foot.
"This weekend is going to be excellent." This was my first thought as I was lying on my stomach in the stairwell of the Courtyard Marriott and waiting for someone to find me.
No one heard me fall, however. Apparently there were no other guests at the hotel that day.
I was that tree that fell in the forest with no people. Only I was lying on the landing in a stairwell at the Marriott in Chattanooga...and I'm not a tree. Other than that...its exactly the same thing. I was poking my hand into my right foot in the hopes I could self diagnose and was doing that Blair Witch Project breathing that you do when you hurt something as an adult and are trying to keep from screaming like a child.
And I waited.
And no one came.
Because other people stay at hotels with elevators.
So I did what every survival expert does…I called information. I did this to get the number for the hotel in whose stairwell I was currently lying in.
I spoke to a nice lady in reservations named Nancy who put me on hold for five minutes after I told her I was lying in her stairwell.
She transferred me to Nicole at the front desk and Nancy felt no need to let Nicole know the reason she was putting call through. Fifteen minutes after my fall, a nice employee named Ben helped me get my bags, found a wheel chair and parked me in the lobby of the hotel as I tried to figure out what I was going to do.
Option 1: Call family member to come get me.
Option 2: Live in Chattanooga.
Option 3: Update my Facebook status.
Option 4: Wait it out and see if I could still make it to Kentucky since I'm so tough (or I'm afraid that someone will be mad at me if I don't show up).
In the end, I wrapped my foot really tight in a bandage, took a lot (a lot) of Motrin and cruise controlled it to Kentucky to a scary campground located in a city that shares its name with the scariest place on Earth.
Which leads me to…
The Part Where I had to go to Bagdad, Kentucky.
I rarely blog about work because, well…I’d like to keep my job, but in this case, I feel like it is my duty to educate the people in my life about a place known as Bagdad, Kentucky. I had to train some Peer Leaders in the great state of Kentucky at their annual training conference this weekend. This conference was being held at a facility that, to help you put it into perspective, was where you would go for church camp or to film an installment of Friday the 13th.
Got a visual?
Now, I have stayed at similar facilities, in the middle of nowhere for miserable, long weekends where all I wanted was a Starbucks and a bed that didn’t make me want to sleep in my car. Those places, however, were all in Georgia. Driving in remote locations in Georgia, for the most part, doesn't scare me. I’m not sure why. Maybe I feel like if I ran into some scary country people, I could flash some red and black at them and they’d let me pass in peace.
But when I had to leave the state of Georgia, cross over Tennessee and wind my way through Kentucky…it was a different story. I mean that’s several different college football territories and honestly, I’m not even sure which ones. I am liable to flash the wrong colors in an attempt to make friends with the natives and get myself shot.
Also, Kentucky is where the Bourbon trail is…enough said.
I wound through back roads ignoring my GPS and instead using a set of directions I was given. GPS is an amazing invention…most of the time. The problem I have with GPS is the fact that this instrument will lead you down roads you could be on…not necessarily roads you should be on. I kind of wish GPS came with a feature that factored in the level of creepy or the likelihood that you might disappear forever when making its road recommendations.
For this reason, I used the handwritten directions I was given once I got off the highway.
A few times, my GPS, which fully understood that I wasn’t following it, would recalculate, not with routes, but with messages like…”You got me…I don’t know where we are either” and “It’s been a pleasure knowing you.” It was a little unnerving. More unnerving was the fact that these messages corresponded with passing places like Buffalo Lick Baptist Church and mobile homes with do-it-yourself-with-plywood additions that had signs posted in the yard that read, “I’ll shoot first and then ask you what you’re doing on my property later” and “Beware of the angry white man with gun”.
It was that type of drive.
I locked eyes with my GPS several times as if it were a person who was in this with me. GPS responded telling me I was on my own with this one since I chose to go rogue.
GPS's are extremely sensitive.
GPS's are extremely sensitive.
To sum up the ending, I found the campground, put in my 24 hours of talking to teens about sex, downed 13 more Motrin and drove home.
Which leads me to…
The Part Where My Sister is a Freak of Nature
When I arrived home late last night, I went directly to my sister’s house, who is in England (it's like a whole other country), which is nothing like Bagdad, Kentucky and where she saw my best friend Nicky (Nicky is English).
Well, first I got O’Charley’s curbside to go then I went to Anna’ house, poured a humongous glass of New Age wine (it’s a wine people, not a religion) to help combat my bitterness and unwrapped my foot that looked nothing like my other foot in size or shape (perhaps I should be going to the doctor at some point).
Since my sister is out of town, I am taking care of her Westies this week, seen here:
For 72 hours before she left town, she obsessed over whether or not I understood how to open and close the kennel door since she had not shown me how to do it. I mean she obsessed. She left me detailed instructions on my voicemail, drew me pictures and even demonstrated it at a restaurant using knives and forks and sugar packets. Obsessed.
I assured her that I could handle it…or I could Google it…or I could call in a professional. Yet, this continued to be thing that stressed her out before leaving out of town.
I assured her that I could handle it…or I could Google it…or I could call in a professional. Yet, this continued to be thing that stressed her out before leaving out of town.
I ignored her. She was acting like a freak of nature.
Friday, I got this texted to me:
Which leads to…
The Part Where Buffalo Flavored Bugles Suck
I have nothing else to say about this. Buffalo flavored Bugles just suck.
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