I will call this short story, "Why you should not drive within 48 hours of doing an Ironman." and those close to me have already heard it, because Mini-baboo was a witness and I wanted to do the telling before he did so that, hopefully, I would not come across looking as stupid as I feel.
SO I was getting ready to leave work Tuesday afternoon, two days after Ironman Loo, and suddenly asked myself, where are my keys? Not in my purse...hmmm...not on my desk. Could I have left them on the cart? OMG, did a student take them?
Crap.
I checked lost and found...nothing there.
I asked Judy, the school secretary, because she knows everything, Judy, where are my keys?
Judy did not know.
Finally I decided to see if I left them in my car. On the way to the car, Mini-Baboo was walking with me. Well, skulking behind, actually. Teenagers rarely just "walk" because it's not cool enough and teenage boys certainly don't walk with their mothers because it might ruin their rep so they skulk behind them trying to make sure nobody thinks they are walking with their mothers while simultaneously staying close enough in case they need food, money, or a ride home.
So as I said, I was walking to see if my keys were my car, feeling confident that if they were it would be no big deal since I usually leave my car windows down a few inches.
and you know what? They were! But wait. It gets better.
...wait for it...wait for it...
the car was RUNNING.
Yes, that's right. Even better, I was not the first to discover this. As I crossed the lot my path converged with another teacher as we were crossing the parking lot and I was sharing with her my plight, and as we got closer to the car, she suddenly interrupted my story--
"Hey, did you know your car was running?"
Um. Uh.
Uh.
"Has your car been running all day?"
Mmm-hmm. Yep. Apparently, after arriving to work a little late last Tuesday morning I got out and walked away about 7:15 am, leaving it running, with keys in, doors unlocked, in a high school teacher's parking lot. At 3:15, and it was still running. (Since it is a Honda, it still had gas in it.)
and, yes, I am aware of how lucky I was, thank you very much. As absent minded as I am most of the time, I (and several of those who know me well) are pretty convinced that I may be one of the luckiest people alive.)
I'm equally aware that I'm not only lucky but ditzy. I need no reminding of this.
The hardest part was acting cool when my work collegue discovered it. And yes, she remembered; she asked me about it yesterday, fully a week later. Which reminded me of it and I thought you might find it entertaining.
Of course, it would be much easier to blame this on recovery fogginess if it weren't for the fact that I drove off two weeks ago while the gas nozzle was still stuck in my gas tank. I'll blame that one on heavy training. And just in case anyone is worried that this is a symptom of some sort of advancing neurological problem, ten years ago I set my house on fire by accident because I was heating oil to fry food and I forgot. It burst into flames, catching the cabinet above it on fire. Oh, and remember earlier this year, I lost a single shoe? That I was wearing? While I was sitting at my desk? yeah. Such is my life.
But, so anyway, I'm a trivia nut, so here's a new trivia fact: did you know that gas stations have special connections for just such an occasion? They snap off at a juncture at the pump in such a way that they can just be easily snapped back on, and the gas is automatically stopped.
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