Because I suck at packing, I set me alarm a good hour and a half before I had to leave my house for the train because I knew that when I packed yesterday afternoon I would have forgotten something crucial like underwear (which I've done) or shoes (which I've done) or my license which I've done). So I spent the first half hour scuttling around the house in a towel in the dark gathering things like jewelry and flip flops and toothbrushes and bandages ('cause, you know, I'm going on vacation with a hole in my stomach, NBD).
In general, I am a chronic over-packer or under-packer. I have yet to find that perfect equilibrium. Or even worse, I routinely grossly over pack in one area and completely neglect another. I'll show up for a weekend at my parents' house with three jackets, 16 pairs of underwear, and a pair of shoes for every occasion but forget to bring pants. Yesterday I decided to err on the side of under packing -- it's Key West; what could I possibly need besides a bathing suit and a couple sun dresses? -- then this morning fluttered around like a chicken gathering pants (just in case) and a hair dryer (just in case) and all those other just in case's that might come up over a four day period. Like the Apocalypse, perhaps.
Later this morning while on the train I exchanged a flurry of text messages with the three other girls accompanying me on this little excursion and -- paired with the fact that I practically chugged my morning coffee like my old beer bonging days of last week -- I got so excited I thought I was going to hyperventilate with joy. Which, considering everything that has gone wrong with me health-wise over the past two months, would be about right. My excitement level grew and grew as my fingers flew across the text keyboard to accurately portray every EEEEE and AHHHH and KEY WEEESSTTT that was flying through my head but would be slightly inappropriate to scream on the train's quiet car. This train was coming from the 'burbs after all. I had to save my screaming and inane ranting for the city bus. Instead, I sat there quietly smiling a big toothy smile at everyone like a big ol' creep.
My emotions were running so high that when chatter turned to printing boarding passes and one of us couldn't find hers, I was ready to Anna Karenina myself right then and there on the train platform. Once the confusion was cleared up, I was one again on top of the world. I was naturally high as a kite. I was Jack and Rose flinging open their arms on the deck of the Titanic as I sat in the bucket seat of the Number 7 on my way to Southie.
There are eight of us -- four couples -- going on this trip. Because we felt the need to legitimize our group on the mean streets of Scituate where we all live, we have affectionately been referring to ourselves as the Saturday Night Social Club for the past few months. And by we I mean the girls. Because we are girls and we feel the need to label everything and why can't we just have this special relationship why do we need to put names on things it doesn't mean I love you any less. Therefore the S.N.S.C. reigns supreme and we meet most Saturdays for dinner and drinking. And, of course, before we even booked our tickets for this trip, we all got homemade bright green t-shirts commemorating this maiden voyage of the S.N.S.C. which we have all promised to wear on the plane this afternoon so we can match and ohmigod it'll be so cute we'll take so many pictures. And yes, we are all fully aware that we are a bunch of grown ass girls playing sorority plus husbands and it doesn't make us love it any less. And the fact that the men have actually started referring to our little band of misfits as "the social club" or "the club" or "the gang" has thus been our greatest triumph.
By the time I got off the bus this morning for the short walk to my office I was so uppity I could feel the excitement sloshing around in my squishy, still highly sensitive little stomach. So now I'm sitting in my office taking deep breaths so I don't teeter over the excitement edge into a full blown panic-excitement attack and end up back in the hospital with stomach knots. HEE HEE HOOO. HEE HEE HOOO. Maybe I'll even do some work to kill time before our flight this afternoon. Here we go, ya'll. It's (Not) Always Sunny in Scituate: The Gang Goes to Key West.
1 comment:
I'm adding that Charlie GIF to my list of greatest GIFs ever created in life. Thank you internet, and thank you, Bridge!
Post a Comment