Yesterday morning I woke up and still had the itch o’ death. Then I began to read comments that discussed things like flesh-eating bacteria and wool pea coat allergies and decided I should go to the doctor to rule out my imminent demise.

The official verdict is I had an allergic reaction to my sunscreen.

Oh Coppertone. You betrayed me in my quest to practice safe sun.

However, I will take the sunscreen allergy over the possibility that I am allergic to my new pea coat. That would be tragic.

The nice doctor offered to give me a shot, but I think the look on my face was the only answer he needed. Umm yeah, I’ll just be taking that prescription and anything you have in the way of a topical ointment.

Anyway, let’s revisit the trip to Port Aransas where I contracted my horrendous skin disease.

We arrived at the beach last Tuesday afternoon, unloaded all our supplies and headed for the ocean. I’ll be honest, the water was dirty even by Texas beach standards which aren’t high.

But our little surfer girl was ready to go.

She and her daddy even managed to catch some fish in their throw net.

And the fish were the perfect addition to the ecosystem I had been feverishly constructing while the Coppertone ate away the top layer of my skin.

The next morning, P and I knew we needed a game plan to ensure we weren’t back in the ocean before 9 a.m. because beach vacations are all about pacing yourself. So we went out to eat breakfast at the Island Cafe because what makes a girl feel bathing suit ready like a short stack of pancakes covered in syrup?

I may have also had a breakfast taco.

After that, we drove over to the docks to see all the fish that the fishermen had caught that morning. I’m telling you there is nothing like the smell of fish and fish guts to make you want to tie some cement blocks to your feet and throw yourself off the dock just to make the smell go away.

But Caroline is her father’s daughter and is not deterred by all the gross.

Here she is checking out the live bait. She really wanted to buy one of the shrimp to keep as a pet.

And here she is with her daddy, watching a man with questionable dental hygiene clean some fish.

Our last stop before we hit the beach was a souvenir shop with a large shark out front. Caroline wasn’t going to rest until she went inside the shark.

Then, it was back to the beach.

And because I am careful about limiting my sun exposure, I continually sprayed myself down with torture in a can.

On Thursday we packed up the truck and began the arduous journey home.

This is Caroline after we’d been on the road for 2.5 seconds.

I wanted to join her but felt like P needed moral support as he drove home. I also thought he might need someone to share the pre-packaged Bluebird Cherry Pie he bought at the Quikmart, but he didn’t even offer me a bite.

I can’t believe I am married to someone who eats pre-packaged cherry pies from a convenience store. They are just not up to the culinary standards of, say, a Grandma’s Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookie.

The rest of the way home, I spent my time commenting on the absurdity of all the Hurricane Evacuation Route signs along the way. It makes me proud to see our tax dollars hard at work pointing out common sense. In case of a hurricane you can either drive north or head straight into the ocean.

Thank you, TXDoT for that valuable information.

Too bad they don’t post warnings about potential sunscreen allergies. It would have saved me a tube of hydrocortisone, four bottles of Zyrtec, the shame of wearing jeans and a long-sleeve shirt to church in the middle of August, and a $35.00 co-pay at the emergency clinic.

Oh, what a weekend we had over here.

Mimi and Bops picked up Caroline on Friday afternoon and I headed straight to the mall because my birthday money was burning a hole in my pocket. Oh sure, I could save it, but why would I do that?

I was halfway to the mall when I remembered that it was tax-free weekend in Texas which translates to MASS CHAOS.

But because I am a fool for shopping, I decided to brave the crowds and take advantage of tax-free savings. I’m not going to lie, I barely made it out alive.

I limped out of the mall in need of fresh air and a weapon of mass destruction. The good news is that my foray into the bowels of hell paid off because I found a really cute pea coat, which is hard to get excited about in the dead of August but will be delightful in January.

Earlier that afternoon, I noticed I had a small rash on my chest. It was slightly itchy and red, but I decided it was a heat rash from all of our beach fun. No big deal.

P and I picked up barbecue for dinner that evening because everyone knows that pork ribs are the traditional celebratory meal for an eleventh wedding anniversary. As we sat at the coffee table, eating our dinner and watching the Olympics, (who says romance is dead?) I began to feel a little itchy behind my knees. And on my arms. And on my back.

I went to look at myself in the mirror and I screamed in horror. Actually, I’m not sure I screamed, but I did mumble a quiet, “What the heck?”

It was not pretty, my friends. Not pretty at all.

So I popped a Zyrtec or six and went to bed in the hopes of sleeping off my rash.

I woke up Saturday morning at 11:00 with a major antihistamine hangover. I kept splashing my face with water and trying to rub my eyes, but everything remained foggy. It was just like I was back in college after a night of too much Zima.

The irony is that I sold Zyrtec for years and always assured physicians that it shouldn’t make their patients sleepy and that it was much more tolerable than Benadryl. And, technically, that is true for 87% of the population.

However, I fall into the other 13%. It knocks girlfriend STRAIGHT OUT.

In fact, when P and I used to take 75 high school kids skiing every Spring Break and had to ride a bus for 17 hours, I would always take a Zyrtec so that I could sleep the entire way.

And then I’d take several more throughout the trip to drown out all the teen angst.

If you are the parent of someone who went on one of these trips, I’m sure someone else was watching your kid. I’m also 87% sure that none of them ever snuck out at night while I was in a comatose state.

Anyway, about my rash.

It continued to spread. I spent most of Saturday coating myself with hydrocortisone and popping any antihistamine I could find in the medicine cabinet.

I’m here to tell you that there is not a more romantic way to spend your eleventh wedding anniversary than all drugged up and slathered in hydrocortisone. That is HOT with a capital H.

I’d use my most alluring voice to say, “Hey baby, why don’t you come over here and put some of that Benadryl lotion on the backs of my knees?”

And for some reason, probably fear of contamination, he turned me down.

I believe the vows say IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.

I finally decided that I contracted some sort of beach rash from all that moat-digging. P thought maybe I was allergic to something I used to clean the house earlier that day.

Later, I was talking to Sophie on the phone, telling her about my rash and our theories as to its origin and she said, “Well, it couldn’t be Mrs. Meyers cleaning spray because it’s all-natural and organic.”

I told P what Sophie said and he replied, “Well, so is the Gulf of Mexico so that doesn’t mean much.”

He makes an excellent point.

If there is any place in the world where a person is likely to contract a rash, it would stand to reason it might be a place where it’s a common practice to carry your Marlboro Lights in your cleavage.

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes, emails and sweet comments! I have to say, other than the fact that it’s just three years away from forty, thirty-seven is awesome.

We’ve been at the beach in Port Aransas since Tuesday morning, so this is how I spent my birthday.

I’ll have y’all know that I became so obsessed with building that moat that I continued to dig long after Caroline lost interest and headed back into the surf.

In fact, look what I did to my finger in my quest to make the BEST MOAT EVER.

The picture does not do my injury justice. It is a massive blister.

I blame the quality of the plastic shovel that I bought at Dollar Tree.

And the fact that my OCD was alive and well on my 37th birthday.

We got home late yesterday and decided to finish the birthday celebration by picking up Mexican food from one of my favorite restaurants.

Oh, and then I spent the rest of the night watching The Olympics and getting P to take pictures of the blister on my finger from various angles so that I can show it to Caroline some day as proof of her mama’s dedication to sand-crafting excellence.

Which just goes to show, while I may be a year older, some things never change.

And on another note, I promise I will get back to Fashion Friday at some point, but it clearly didn’t happen today and I guarantee it won’t happen next week. Let’s just call it a summer hiatus.

Y’all have a great Friday.

There is something that’s been going on in my personal life that I have been very reluctant to discuss. It’s been more than I can bear and has altered life as I once knew it.

It’s about my HEB.

For those of y’all who don’t know, HEB is a grocery store chain based in South Texas. The founder’s name was Howard E. Butt, thus, HEB. You have to admit HEB rolls off the tongue much better than, say, The Butt Store.

Unless you only sell hemorrhoid cream.

I spend over half my life at HEB. It is like my home away from home.

It all started about two months ago when I realized that my favorite manager, Dwayne, had been transferred to another store. I kind of knew it would happen eventually because Dwayne was the Michael Phelps of grocery store managers. (See how I just worked in an Olympic reference?)

Losing Dwayne was like losing a member of my family. He had been there for me since Caroline was a newborn baby, doling out Buddy Bucks and handing out balloons. Every time we went to the store, Caroline would look for Dwayne and run to give him a hug.

But Dwayne had to move on to greener HEB pastures.

The next thing I knew, HEB decided to quit carrying Tyson skinless boneless chicken breasts, which has required me to completely cut poultry out of my family’s diet because just the thought of raw chicken, or even cooked chicken with skin, makes me want to systematically rid the world of all chickens.

So, I’ve had my struggles with HEB as of late but, due to their South Texas monopoly, my only other option is to shop at Walmart and, frankly, I’d rather hoe my own garden.

Two weeks ago, I walked into HEB and noticed they had taken up all the linoleum. I figured we were getting some stained concrete floors and I was cool with that. I can handle change in reasonable increments, especially if it’s fashionable change.

However, over the last two weeks I have been to HEB about twenty-six times and each time the store is in a bigger mess than it was the last time I was there.

There is motor oil where the bread used to be, toilet paper where the Diet Coke was, and cereal in the middle of the produce department. I haven’t been this confused since I accidentally took twice the recommended dosage of some prescription cough medicine last winter.

I wander aimlessly around the store hoping I’ll find at least a few things I actually need. At times I stop and ponder why the wine is on the same aisle as the diapers and baby food, but then I remember Caroline’s first year of life and realize it’s just a clever marketing ploy.

The worst part is that every time I go back, the whole store has been completely rearranged again. So just when I figure out that the ice cream is across from the tampons (there’s that clever marketing!), they go and change it all around.

I kind of think they’re messing with me.

Yesterday, Caroline and I went to the store to load up on groceries. I was hot and tired because we’d already run about fifty-eight errands that morning and I just wanted the store trip to be over. Naturally, Caroline sensed this and decided she wanted to ride on one of the bench carts that create more navigational challenges than the Queen Mary in a swimming pool.

I knew it was going to be a special trip when I managed to knock over an entire display of Pecan Sandies before we’d even been there for five minutes. In my defense, it wasn’t really my fault since they weren’t on the cookie aisle but rather next to the charcoal and lighter fluid.

We went through the whole store like we were on a bad scavenger hunt while Caroline provided running commentary for everything. “WOW MAMA! YOU REALLY KNOCKED OVER A LOT OF COOKIES!!”

Finally, I had almost everything I needed, but couldn’t find the bottled water. I was desperate to find bottled water. Please, OZARKA, help me out.

I couldn’t find any HEB staff to assist me in my quest. They were all too busy unpacking boxes and arbitrarily moving around the stock. I was tempted to head back to the diaper aisle and load up a case of wine for immediate consumption.

About the time my blood pressure was about to shoot off the charts, I located the bottled water. On the dog food aisle.

Naturally.

We headed to the shortest checkout line I could find and just when I thought I was safe, Caroline yelled, “LOOK MAMA! THAT LADY IS SHOWING HER BOOBIES!”

I was too embarrassed to look around to see what she was talking about, but honestly I can’t blame that woman. She was probably hoping to attract the attention of an HEB employee to help her find the bottled water.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

All day Tuesday we just kind of hung out around the house and bonded with our new unicorn. Actually, P and Caroline did take a trip to Bass Pro Shops, but I chose to stay home because did you read the part where I said “Bass Pro Shops”?

I am not interested in retailers that only sell things that come in the colors olive green, brown or tan.

That is so Banana Republic circa 1994.

Anyway, after a leisurely Tuesday, I decided we needed a fun-filled Wednesday. A day filled with all summer has to offer.

And because I am never one to miss out on a trend, I decided we should take a staycation. So I talked to Gulley on Tuesday night and told her I thought Wednesday would be a good day to take the kids to New Braunfels to experience the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch African Safari.

So I guess technically instead of a staycation we took a twenty-five minute awaycation.

I have always been a fan of any business that offers a drive-through for my convenience and I assumed a drive-through safari would be no different. It’s like the zoo on wheels with air-conditioning. What’s not to love?

Plus, this was billed to be better than the zoo. It’s an African Safari.

You can imagine my dismay when this was the first thing we saw.

Ooooh, look kids! It’s the rare and elusive Texas longhorn!

Totally worth the $25.00 I just shelled out in admission.

It’s not like we can just drive down to the ranch and see one or thirty of those FOR FREE.

Gulley and I were exchanging looks with each other as we communicated wordlessly that THE DRIVE-THROUGH SAFARI? It is lame.

But suddenly, it was redeemed because we saw this.

And this.

And this.

We also saw some zebras way back in the trees, two rhinos in a fenced off area, and some giraffe. Oh, and some ostriches that I couldn’t get a picture of because Gulley told the kids some horror story about an ostrich eating the buttons off her Uncle Glen’s shirt one time and they insisted we roll up the windows every time we passed an ostrich.

All said and done, it ended up being an okay activity because it involved air-conditioning, I got to hear Caroline exclaim “OH! ALL MY LIFE I HAVE WANTED TO SEE A WILDEBEEST!”, and each kid got a free bag of some kind of rancid feed to fling at the animals while they flinched.

I don’t know that a person can ask for more than that.

After a quick lunch at Chick-Fil-A, we loaded back up in the car to continue our twenty-five minute awaycation. Our next stop was Landa Park.

The first thing we did was ride the Landa Park train. The conductor was this nice old man and he had a pocketful of peanuts that he threw out for the squirrels. I cannot tell you how much it cracked me up to watch all the squirrels come running down trees to get their peanuts as they heard the train go by. It was like something out of a Disney movie.

We finished the day swimming in the spring-fed swimming hole. (Why does that sentence make me feel like I’m writing an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies”?) The water temperature was slightly above freezing, but once my extremities went completely numb, it wasn’t too bad.

Finally, it was time to begin the journey home. Gulley and I were worn out. There is nothing like a day of fun to make you want to spend the next three days in bed.

However, the kids asked if we could stop at McDonalds and play on the playground.

I’m pretty sure they’re trying to kill us.

Thank you all for all of your comments yesterday. It’s always nice to know that you’re not the only one who is living with someone who is trying to overthrow the current regime and establish her own wee dictatorship.

On the bright side, we have had a solid 48 hours of peace. Oh, she tried to get to me yesterday morning, but I was strong and resisted the bait.

We had a morning full of errands to run and she announced she was going to get herself dressed. I went into my closet to do the same and when I returned to the living room she was wearing a yellow floral skirt, a black and white paisley shirt, turquoise knee socks, and sparkly tennis shoes.

Oh, and a fleece snow hat.

I told her to grab a snack for the car so we could get going. She looked right at me and said, “Do you see what I’m wearing?”

“Yes, you look great. Although you might get hot in the snow hat.”

It’s like I’m a whole new person. A person who is choosing to only see love and peace instead of mismatched patterns and tacky knee socks.

We spent our morning running errands to get ready for her birthday party next week. Our first stop was supposed to be our favorite bakery, but when we arrived there, it was gone. Seriously. GONE.

I called them and discovered they are in the process of moving and will be shut down for the next three weeks. I wanted to yell, “BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BARBIE ISLAND PRINCESS CAKE?!”

Then I remembered that I am full of peace and love.

So we drove to HEB to check out the bakery. I mean it’s not like a bunch of five year olds really care about the cake. All they’re going to do is lick off the icing and drop the cake on the ground for the ants.

Unfortunately, HEB does not make a Barbie Island Princess cake. HOWEVER, they do make a Barbie Fairytopia cake covered in hot pink icing that is guaranteed to stain anything within a five mile radius and cause sugar levels to skyrocket.

The last errand on our list was Party City. We needed to get Barbie plates on which to eat our Barbie cake. Also, we needed to get candy to fill up the pinata.

Speaking of pinatas, I delegated the task of pinata purchase to Gulley’s husband, J. His work often takes him to the South Side of San Antonio where you can get a MUY GRANDE PINATA for very little dinero. Caroline told him she would either like a cheetah pinata or a unicorn.

Because everyone knows that Barbie frequently cavorts with both cheetahs and unicorns.

As opposed to Bratz dolls who spend all their time perfecting the art of looking like a hot, trashy mess and putting on another coat of mascara before they go pierce their bellybutton. For the third time.

Anyway, I had a message on my cell phone from J. yesterday afternoon. “Mel, I’m down here on the South Side looking at a white unicorn pinata with a pink, yellow and purple mane. I think it’s a good choice so I’m going to go ahead and get it IF IT FITS IN MY CAR.”

J. drives an SUV.

Gulley called after J. got home and informed me that I am the proud owner of one of the largest pinatas she has ever seen. In fact, her youngest son, Will, was currently sitting on it.

I’m afraid we may have to take out a second mortgage to fill it with candy.

Or maybe I’ll just pray that the kids will pass out from the sheer exhaustion that can only come from beating the heack out of a gargantuan piece of papier mache’ and will fail to realize they only got one Starburst and a pack of Nerds for their efforts.

To give y’all some idea of the level of excitement around here this week, I’ll tell you what the highlight of my day was yesterday. Caroline and I went to Target and I found party favors for her birthday party in the dollar aisle. I won’t reveal what they are because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for any of her friends that happen to read the blog.

Even though her friends are five and they don’t really read.

And, as far as I know, none of her friends’ parents read the blog either. Well, except for Gulley and she already knows about the party favors because my joy was so great that I called her immediately to tell her of my incredible find.

I really need to find some sort of hobby.

However, my party favor elation was short-lived because I returned home later in the afternoon and made a horrific discovery.

The night before I had a hard time sleeping because it felt like the bottom of my bed was filled with crumbs. It’s not like this is an unlikely scenario considering that I have a four-year-old who, much like Barbara Mandrell, enjoys nothing more than eating crackers in my bed anytime.

So when I returned home yesterday, fresh from my party favor coup, I remembered that I wanted to strip the bed and wash the sheets. But when I went to throw all the pillows off the bed, I discovered that it wasn’t crumbs causing levels of discomfort I haven’t felt since watching Jeremy show up again on “The Bachelorette” Monday night, rather it was the fact that my bottom sheet is beginning to pill.

I cannot tell y’all how this troubles me. It completely stole all my $1.00 party favor joy.

It has been well-documented by me, and anyone who has ever had the misfortune of sharing a sleeping space with me, that I am a high-maintenance bedtime person. I always have been.

In fact, I can clearly remember dragging my sleeping bag into my parents’ room in the middle of the night when I was a child and taking the time to spread out a sheet under the sleeping bag because I didn’t want my hands to touch the shag carpet if I decided to tuck them under my pillow. Which is why they sold me to a band of gypsies when I was seven.

I need soft sheets. I need a fitted bottom sheet, not a ghetto flat sheet posing as a fitted sheet. I need the room to be the proper temperature. I need a gaggle of pillows surrounding me on all sides.

I am basically the poster child for why couples shouldn’t live together before they get married. Had P been made aware of all my bedtime quirks, I feel certain that he would have found a nice sane girl to share his life and his bed.

And I would be all alone with the exception of my eighty-two pillows.

All this to say that the reason I am so upset about my pilled sheets is because they are practically brand new. I had such high hopes for them. They had it all; high thread count, Egyptian cotton (no one knows cotton like the Egyptians, look how long those strips of cotton preserve those mummies), and a sateen finish.

Please note I said “sateen”, not satin. I am not confessing to the internet that I sleep on satin sheets. Although my Nanny swears by sleeping on a satin pillowcase because it keeps your weekly “set” from the beauty shop fresh.

When P and I got married we received two really nice sets of sheets. Over the next three years they developed a softness that was rivaled only by a baby’s rear end. I adored them.

Unfortunately, they were queen-size sheets because at the time we had a queen-size bed. When we decided to upgrade due to sleeping space issues, I had to lay my precious sheets on the sacrificial king-size bed altar.

Since that time I have bought various brands and styles of bed linens. I have purchased expensive sheets and I have purchased inexpensive sheets, but no matter what I do they always end up pilling.

Help me, O WISE INTERNET. What am I doing wrong? Am I washing them wrong? Am I drying them wrong? Am I buying the wrong brand? Are the Egyptians not as smart as I give them credit for?

Am I destined to spend sleepless nights singing Barbara Mandrell songs in my head?

Yesterday was the first day in about three weeks that Caroline and I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything we had to do. We spent much of the morning in our pajamas and finally headed out to run a few errands around 10:30 a.m.

This is the sad reality of motherhood. When you wake up at the crack of early, it seems like you’ve already lived half a day by 10:30 a.m.

I told Caroline we were going to run some errands and she ran in her room to get dressed. Heaven help me, the wardrobe issues are going to be the death of me.

It’s like living with J.Lo back when she was all “Jenny from the block and don’t be fooled by the rocks that she got”, and not Mrs. Marc Anthony.

Frankly, I miss the old J. Lo.

Caroline came out of her room wearing jeans that were about three inches too short, pink cowboy boots, a sleeveless floral print top, and a necklace that she fashioned out of two bracelets that came from Vacation Bible School that say “When in doubt, PRAY!” and “PRAY without ceasing”.

Which is exactly what I do every morning when she gets dressed.

And just for that extra bit of flair, she was carrying her Hello Kitty purse, had her huge sunglasses up on her head and was carrying a coffee thermos. I bet five dollars she and Mary Kate Olsen had on the same outfit yesterday.

But since I am beat down by the wardrobe and, inherently, there isn’t anything wrong with it, other than the fact that she looks like a hobo, I just went with it and we headed out to run some errands.

Our first stop was the mail store and then we walked down to the drugstore to pick up a few other things. This was a critical error on my part because there is a pet store in between the drugstore and the mail store.

Caroline begged to go in the pet store and I thought “What the heck, it’s summer. Let the girl have some fun!”, because what says summer fun like hearing a parrot squawk until your ears bleed?

Of course all she wanted to see were the rodents. And I have never been more grateful that she can’t read yet because there was a big sign on the cage of the Siberian Hamsters that said “FREE TO GOOD HOME. ASK YOUR PARENTS.”

Oh, that’s just what I need. A free Russian rodent that would, no doubt, demand high-dollar vodka, caviar and repeated viewings of Anna Karenina.

She was particularly interested in seeing what she called “the feeder mice”.

I asked, “What are the feeder mice?”

“They are the mice that you feed to snakes. Can we buy some to take to the ranch to feed the snakes?”

“What did you say, baby?” Mama couldn’t hear you over the gagging and her brain spontaneously combusting.

“I want to buy some feeder mice to feed the snakes.”

I suspect that someone has recently visited the pet store with her daddy, because the only mice she knows about from me are the kind that make dresses for Cinderella or hang out with ducks who don’t wear pants.

And I’m keeping it that way.

I used the handy random number generator to choose the winner of the Lindsey Kane CD.

And the winner is:

Random Integer Generator

13
Timestamp: 2008-06-27 19:43:26 UTC

Congratulations to Fab the Mayor, lucky #13, at Musings from My Little Corner of the World.

Email me with your address and I’ll get your Lindsey Kane CD in the mail on Monday.

Or maybe Tuesday.

But for those of y’all who didn’t win, I have GOOD NEWS!

Third Day is coming out with their new CD Revelation on July 29. You can go listen to all the awesomeness right here.

But here’s the GOOD NEWS. I have ten Revelation CD’s to giveaway!

TEN.

TEN WINNERS!

So, leave a comment and I’ll use my friend, the random number generator, to pick ten winners on Monday!

Remember how on Fridays I used to talk about fashion or something?

I’m not sure what happened.

And I realize I keep creating false hopes for all three of you who care about Fashion Friday because every Friday I promise that I’ll resume Fashion Friday the following week.

Honestly, I still intend to do Fashion Fridays because I enjoy them, but it will be sporadic over the summer. Because really, what do you need to know about summer fashion?

Wear shorts. Wear t-shirts. Wear skirts. Wear a swimsuit.

It’s all good.

As long as you have access to some A/C.

I’m leaving for Atlanta at 6:30 a.m. to attend Deeper Still. For those of you doing the math, that means I’m going to have to set my alarm for 4:30.

Oh the horror.

I haven’t set an alarm for 4:30 since Caroline was a newborn and her pediatrician said I needed to make sure she ate every three hours around the clock. That’s what I get for having a baby that only weighed 5 1/2 pounds.

The good news is that I managed to pack one carry on bag. However, since I’m only going to be gone thirty-six hours, it would have just been embarrassing to have to check a suitcase. Still, I haven’t traveled with just a carry on since my days of riding the Greyhound bus to Houston to visit my daddy with my rainbow duffel bag thrown over my shoulder.

So yesterday I spent the day meticulously obsessing over the inventory of my carry on. What if I spill something? What if I hate the shoes I pack? What if it doesn’t feel like a day for jeans and all I have are jeans?

You know, real problems.

Anyway, in spite of all my suitcase concerns, I spent most of the afternoon at the pool with Caroline. Everything was great until we stopped for a break at around 4:00 and I pulled out my cell phone to check in with P, only to discover that my cell phone wasn’t working.

Panic. Sheer panic.

How did my early 90’s self survive without a cell phone? Or as I called it back then, a CELLULAR phone.

I cannot even imagine all the time I wasted in my late teens sitting at home waiting for some loser to call. Time that could have been spent bettering myself or shopping.

Clearly, I couldn’t leave town (to a whole other state, no less) without a working cell phone.

The phone was working, it just said that I needed to insert the SIM card. I’m no technological wizard but I do know that the SIM card is the key to your cell phone universe.

So I took out the battery and took out the SIM card to research the problem. I used a highly scientific process to try to fix whatever was wrong with the SIM card, which means that I kind of rubbed it on my beach towel and then blew on it really hard.

After I put it back in the phone, it still wasn’t working. I can’t imagine why.

Caroline and I stayed at the pool a little while longer and then we left so that I’d have time to go to the AT&T store to say HALP! MAH PHONE IS BROKEN.

Since I couldn’t call P, I decided to stop by the house to let him know what was going on and share my STRESS. STRESS OVER MY NON-WORKING CELL PHONE. Nevermind that I spent the first twenty-four years of my life without one, I cannot function without it.

He opened it up while I stood next to him explaining that I’d already done that. “I’VE DONE THAT. I EVEN BLEW ON IT AND WIPED IT WITH MY BEACH TOWEL. CLEARLY, IT’S BEYOND HELP.”

That’s when he noticed that some idiot had put the SIM card back in facing the wrong direction. And it was kind of stuck. Which required tweezers.

And maybe some pliers.

But it finally came out.

P put it back in and turned on my phone. It worked.

He looked at me and said, “That’s a little thing I like to call doing it the RIGHT WAY.”

Whatever.

He’ll be lucky if I call him this weekend.

I’ll be posting updates on Deeper Still over at the LifeWay All Access blog this weekend.