Life in the Klutz Lane

When I was growing up I took ballet and jazz lessons. Starting at the age of 3 until I was 15 I attended classes sometimes up to 4 or 5 days a week. As a teenager, my mother told me (and lots of other people) she attributed that fact that I wasn't a complete klutz and that I was still living to dance. What she was really saying is that dance lessons had trained some of the awkwardness and poor coordination right out of me. Not entirely though. And, much to my dismay, it has done nothing to help with the ridiculous situations and seemingly endless occasions where minimal common sense, lack of observation, and poor memory reign abundant.

I was reminded of this idiosyncrasy of mine--if you'd like to call it that, although perhaps conundrum is a better word for it--on Sunday night. I had been working the night shift for the last several days and was scheduled to work Saturday through Tuesday nights. To say night shifts are not my favorite thing, would be a gross understatement. I don't mind the actual work on nights (I mean, I am posting on my blog right now...at work...in the middle of the night...) but I hate my life when I work them. All I want to do is sleep and lay in my bed before I go back to work. Sociality is non-existent when I work nights and getting to the gym is worse than pulling teeth without numbing. The night shift just isn't very conducive to Erika being a happy, extroverted, kind, or mentally with it girl (the last one being a small problem considering the fact I'm a nurse and hold people's lives in my hand!). But, I digress.

Saturday night I worked. I came home Sunday morning and slept. ALL DAY. I had to work Sunday night, so I skipped church and wasted away the beautiful sunny day sleeping and laying in my bed. Our home teachers were coming that night so I dragged myself out of my cozy and blissful slumber at 4 pm and hurried to shower, eat, and get ready before they arrived. They came, gave us a nice little lesson, boosted our self-esteem, and promised to send Jeremiah's roommate to replace our front porch lightbulb later that week. I chatted with my roomies (Corinne, Megan, and almost roomie Rachel) then headed off in the pouring rain to report to work.

I got to the hospital early. Very early. 20 minutes early. A rare occasion for me. So, I bought a diet coke and a bag of cinnamon bears from the cafeteria to share with my pod partners (the other nurses I would work with that night) and mosied upstairs. My name was not on the assignment board. My name was not on the schedule. I looked in the schedule book. I was NOT supposed to work. Blasted.

Typical Erika moment. (Seniors have theirs; I have mine.) Of course I would do something like this. I would show up to work when I don't even have to. It couldn't have been a Saturday night when I would have been more than happy to go home and find something fun to do. This was Sunday night. What can you possibly do on a rainy Sunday night? I'd slept away the sunshine, missed church, and would be awake for the WHOLE night because I'd been dreaming all day. I was left with little else, but to return home, chat a little more with the girls and then watch episodes on Hulu until 430 am when I was finally able to sleep...until 230 pm Monday.

And you know, it would be one thing if this was a rare occurence, but these sorts of things happen to me all the time. For instance, in March I missed my flight from Seattle to SLC. I wasn't late or in the bathroom. I was sitting in the terminal, 100 feet from the gate, facing the window where the plane was boarding. They paged me overhead; then they gave away my seat.(It does help me feel better that at least I wasn't alone on this one and my 2 friends were with me.) You can't script things like that. It's purely dumb. STUPID in all capital letters.

Or, take the time I backed out of the lean-to my landlord calls a carport and knocked the side mirror off my drivers side door. Which then had to be taped to my car to hold it up until I could replace it.

Then there was the day in college when I resorted to using dish soap in the dishwasher because we were out of dishwasher detergent and I thought it would be fine as long as I just "used less." Let's just say we had a repeat of the bubbly floor scrubbing scene in Cinderella.

Oh, and let's not forget the double date I planned with my friend Natalie when I used my "secret trick" to reheat the rolls in the oven with a wet paper bag, then forgot about the rolls and caught the oven and rolls on fire.

And the morning I locked my keys in the trunk of my car @ 530 am in Burley. Where I don't have a spare key. Where the lock smith lives 45 minutes away. When I had to drive back to SLC because I was on-call at work. And then I never got called in.

The list could go on and on and on. I'm sure you could probably list 10 things similar to this...even if you barely know me. My mother and father could take pages; which is why they're not allowed to comment on this blog post.