Remember when I said that the nice thing about the Aggie football team’s three game losing streak is that I had reached a point where I was no longer emotionally invested?
It turns out that was a total lie.
In my defense, I really thought that’s where I was as a person. But when we scored on our opening drive, I was like the Grinch when he hears the Whos in Whooville singing “Welcome Christmas” and realizes Christmas doesn’t come from a store and his heart grows three sizes that day. I watched Kyle Allen throwing touchdown passes and our team showing some heart and grit and my heart became totally and completely invested in the game.
The only downside is that I was on my way home from Charlotte, NC. Originally I thought this was going to be a good thing because I’d just check the game results after I landed, long after the game was over and I couldn’t see the carnage. But Sophie and I were sitting at the airport waiting for our flights and I was able to watch the entire first half, including Myles Garrett blocking that field goal and DeShazor Everett returning it for a touchdown, before I had to board my flight.
And then, praise to the Lord above, my flight had wi-fi. However, technology has not come so far as to effectively live stream an event while in the air and I ultimately had to settle for following the game on Twitter, which is when I discovered that some people just tweet things like “AAAHHHHHHH” or “OBIOHA!” and it’s almost impossible to know what those things mean when you can’t actually see the game. Although I will say that I watched the entire game on Sunday and I think it probably spared me losing ten years of my life that I didn’t watch that fourth quarter live. I’m not sure I would have survived it.
All that to say, it was a great weekend for the Aggies. Our football team beat the #3 team in the nation and, more importantly, appeared to have found their fire again. And our Aggie soccer team won the SEC tournament for the second year in a row. Good times.
Anyway, I flew to Charlotte on Friday for a women’s event that Sophie and I were doing together. And the whole thing was just so much fun, except for the part where I completely terrified total strangers because I tried to get in the car at the airport. I realize this needs some explanation.
When I landed in Charlotte, I called the nice girls who were picking me up from the airport to let them know I was about to walk out the doors and told them I was towards the end of the pick up area. They told me they were in a brown Yukon and would be there shortly. I looked up a few minutes later and saw two women waving at me wildly with big smiles on their faces and so I waved back and headed towards their car even though it was clearly a white Sequoia and not a brown Yukon. I popped my head in the passenger window that was rolled down as I exclaimed, “HIIII! I thought y’all said you were in a brown Yukon!” And these two women looked at me blankly and said, “We were waving at her.”
I turned around and saw a woman behind me walking up to greet these women who were obviously her friends and not the coordinators of my event. And that’s when I died.
The end.
Instead I turned back to them and tried to explain but they all just greeted me with a frightened stare. As I told this story to P tonight with tears streaming down my face in hilarity, he asked, “Why didn’t you just get your head out of their window and turn and walk away?”
It’s a valid question.
I think I just wanted them to know that it was a legitimate case of mistaken identity and that I wasn’t part of some elaborate airport carjacking ring that pretends to know people and jump in their car uninvited in an attempt to steal their vehicle.
Because that might be a real thing that no one has ever heard about.
Needless to say, it took me a few minutes to recover from this entire incident and I still felt like I might burst into flames when I finally saw the ladies I was supposed to meet and they were, in fact, in a brown Yukon just like they said.
After this terribly inauspicious beginning, the rest of the weekend turned out to be a total delight. Sophie and I had the best time doing an event together and met so many sweet women from all over, including a mother and daughter that had flown all the way from Washington to see us. We laughed a lot and cried a little and I think we all left glad we had been there.
By the time I landed in San Antonio Saturday evening, my heart was full. The Aggies had won, the weekend had gone well, and Gulley was picking me up from the airport. We broke down all our thoughts on the football game as she drove me home and then I hopped in my car to go pick up Caroline from a friend’s house. As I was driving, I looked up just in time to see a huge, green ball of light go streaking across the sky. It was way too big to be a falling star and so bright that I honestly braced myself because I thought I was about to hear a huge “BOOM” as it made impact. It was quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
I picked up Caroline and told her all about it and came home to discover it was apparently a meteor that landed somewhere near the Mexico border.
And all I could think was if you had told me on Saturday morning that the Aggies were going to be beat Auburn, I might have said there was a better chance of me seeing a meteor crash to the earth.
As it turns out, I saw both.
That’s a good weekend.