The Ham and Cheese Fiasco

Dear Readers,
After writing the following entry, I have noticed that it is excessively long. I apologize in advance and urge you to read on, though you can certainly skim through, unless you are reading this in Art History or in the library, in which case, you are probably procrastinating and might want to critique my every word to stall for time. Anyways, it's all there in detail for a reason. Also, please know in advance, that all the thoughts I have mentioned below actually ran through my head at the time. N0rmally, my mind is quite inactive and I don't think a whole lot when I'm just sitting around, but for whatever reason the comical/slightly critical voices in my head were quite chatty on this particular day. Please don't hold the voices against me :)

Yesterday was going really well…until lunch time. It all went down hill from there. I'm blaming the whole entire day on the worst ham and cheese sandwich I ever had. Here's how the day unfolds:I woke up, packed, ate breakfast and went to two schools before lunch. Things were going really well up until then. On my way out of school two, I was walking down the stairs in the cafeteria (think: big main staircase with a crowd at the bottom) and my high heel gets stuck in my pant leg. In front of a bunch of people, I tripped, groped for the railing and end up hopping down a few stairs to catch my balance...So graceful. I smiled and kept walking. Really what else is there to do? I trip and fall on a regular basis so I'm used to it. Once I fell down an entire fight on the main stair case at the Student Union, at dinner time. Full house. One guy clapped. Another time I face planted in the mud outside a main classroom building. Actually, that was twice. Back to the story, I suppose my bad luck really began there, but I am still going to chalk it up to the sandwich.

I could feel my stomach rumbling during my last school. I was hungry and needed to find some food pretty quickly. None of this drive around and peruse the options ordeal. I typed in food in the GPS, found Schlotzkys, a chain deli I had driven by in a few states, and headed there. I'd never been to a Schlotzkys, but I figured it was a new restaurant to check out. I went in, looked at the menu, assessed the options (There was nothing I REALLY wanted, which was chicken salad) so I settled on a ham and cheese. All the sign said was "Ham & Cheese Sandwich." I wanted ham, cheese, and bread. Preferably some mayo, but I would have been content without it. No one ever asked me what I wanted on it. Just if I wanted it hot. No. I do not want it hot. I just want a basic ham and cheese. So I waited 10 minutes for them to make my $10 sandwhich (in all fairness, I got chips and a drink too), I sit down, and look at exactly what I got. This was not what I was expecting. This was fancy people ham and cheese. I wanted little kid ham and cheese. Why cant you order that in the real world?! You also can't order PB&J. Do you know how much I miss PB&J on the road?! First thing I did when I got home at midnight last night was eat one. So good. But I'm getting off track.

So this ham monstrosity - it was sourdough bread, which wasn't any kind of soughdough I'd ever seen. It was gross. It looked like swiss cheese and tasted like sponge. Then, it was ham, cold shredded cheese (because I didn't order it hot so it didn't melt), onions, mustard, lettuce, tomato, some weird "signature" dressing, and these little black triangles that I had never seen before. I'm sure some of you reading this are totally judging me and think this would be the world's best sandwich. But I'm a very picky eater and this fanciness is not in my eating repertoire. So I scraped off a few things and tried to figure out what these black things were. Pepper? A seed of some sort? Diced fish? I tried eating them one by one. Not a clue. On my way out, I later asked the cook. They were olives. Ew. This thing in front of me was gross, I couldn't even eat just the bread because it was soaked in sauce and spongy anyways. I was hungry and tired and ready to go home. I'll be totally honest and say I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Who cries over a ham & cheese?! Me, apparently. I know that reading this you must think I am absolutely beyond ridiculous, but it's not the first time I've had a food related meltdown and it won't be the last. Low blood sugar and hunger do crazy things to people.

Frustrated and furious that I wasn't warned about the hideousness I bought, I left and ventured out to get some other food. Looking at my Google calendar, I had 2 free hours. Strange, I thought, that I had 2 mid-day free hours, but whatever. I relaxed, made some calls, did a little work, and headed to my 3rd school. The all-girls school next on my list was quite lovely. Breathtaking, I might say. But I checked in with the secretary who said she was going to notify guidance that I was there. I was 20 minutes early, and when 35 minutes later no one ever came to claim me, I went back to the secretary. Apparently she forgot to call Guidance. I had 2 girls and their parents waiting for me (it was parents day. how cute!) They didn't look thrilled to be waiting, but hey, not my fault. So I talked with them for a long time and then a counselor wanted to make small talk and ask a million questions, which made me late to my next school. I booked it out the door and went to call the last school to say I was on my way when I realized the appointment was not 2:30 as my g-cal said, but 12:30. I must have dropped the 1 when typing it into my phone. AHHHHH! I was MORTIFIED. Absolutely panic stricken. So I called the school and apologized on the voicemail. I figured dropping off some view books, even though school day was probably over, would be the very least I could do. And so I went to the school.

To my surprise, the counselor was in his office. I went in and apologized profusely and said how incredibly embarrassed I was. He was a small, older man. Well into his 60s. In a cute little orange henley over a paisley, very country looking blue button up, he looked rather calm and friendly. I actually though he'd be great in a Harry Potter movie. One of the wise, old teachers who is there to let students learn from mistakes but catch them if they stumble. Well, he sat me down and said there were 12 students who had signed up to speak to me. At 1:30.....1:30?! Apparntly, my office sent a paper saying 1:30, my g-cal said 2:30, and my hand written calendar (as well as his calendar) said 12:30. Woah. Mistakes all around! Then he pulls out a form and asks me what it was. I knew what it was - my evaluation form that he had to fill out on my performance and send it back to my supervisors. Great. I told him what it was, nervously chuckled and suggested he just write LATE right across the top. "We'll see..." was all he said, in a sort of evil villain tone. I'm telling you, perfect for a movie. Then he started asking questions. Lots of questions. Many I knew, but some were completely out of the blue. I couldn't have even guessed if I wanted to. "What other schools in NC do students in your state apply to?" "What schools might students from NC apply to in addition to your school?" Uhhhhh....Then he suggested, I carry more information with me. This is not going to be a favorable review. Eek. I guess you can't win them all. I tried. I really did and I couldn't have felt worse. What a mistake. It won't happen again. For sure. Fortunately, in the last few weeks I've had a few counselors tell me I did an incredible job. One said it was the best presentation she'd seen in 10 years. That's a pretty big compliment! Hopefully that review outweighs this negative one.

So I rushed out of the school, not looking back, and headed to the airport to drop off my rental car. Now my suitcase was super full and I was really worried that it was going to be overweight. I decided that wearing my heavy jeans, sneakers, socks, and a coat would be the best way to conserve weight. Afterall, they can weigh my suitcase but not me! Load on those layers! I stopped at a gas station and changed out of my work clothes and into my casual wear. I decided to rock the UNC t-shirt. On my way to the airport, good old Garmin brought me to the wrong Enterprise. The clock was ticking. Only 1.5 hours until my flight left, which in reality was plenty of time, but they suggest you do 2 hours. I called Enterprise freaking out, got directions, and successfully dropped off my car. "You go to UNC? the employee asked me. I contemplated saying yes for a long time. I could have come up with a whole different persona. No one would ever know! But then I thought a little more - what if he asked what dorm I lived in? I could have said I lived off campus, though I didn't know of any roads or apartment names. What if he asked what my major was? What if the one I said was his major and he asked about classes or professors?! Lying wasn't a good idea. Especially digging myself a hole when I easily could have said the truth, "No. I just wanted a shirt". And so I did. Tell the truth, that is.

At the airport, I went through the security check point and just my luck, I set off the alarm. of course. Turns out, I was wearing to much metal jewelry. That's what I get for buying too much stuff and having to wear it all home! Anyways, inside I was sitting next to some Duke students. I had nothing else better to do than eavesdrop, so I listened in and couldn't help but smile. One girl told the group she had been written up the night before. She was mad, obviously. Apparently she never goes out and finally went out one night to a party in her friends' suite. The RAs knocked on the door and everyone ran through the bathroom into the other room and out the second door. The girl was the only one left standing in the suite and therefore, the only one documented. The RA in me cracked up on the inside. What a rookie.

Then, my luck started to turn around. The airline announced that they had overbooked the flight and needed two volunteers to take a later flight. The reward/bribe was a $275 flight voucher for a future flight. I jumped up and bolted to the desk. Well, I didn't really run, but I wasn't wasting time. I was the second one in line. A Duke girl showed up behind me. "SUCKER. You snooze you lose. Shoulda walked faster, girly!" My competitiveness gets the best of me sometimes, but thankfully these thoughts were only in my head. I just smiled at her with somewhat genuine sympathy. I got the bump for a later flight. VICTORY! I was so excited. I posted in facebook, twitter and sent out some text messages. I thought about all the places I could go on my $275 flight - California? Back to NC to visit family? Rome? The islands? The world was my oyster. Thank you U-! I love this job!!! So the flight boarded and I sat around, awaiting my voucher. "Passenger O----. Please come to the desk." I went. "You can board the plane now. We don't need you to take another flight" Oh. I told her was really excited for the voucher. Her response was just "thank you for volunteering. We are going to have to check your carry on. There's no room left in the overheads anymore". You're ever so welcome. What do I get? Nothing. A thank you. And they'd probably lose my bags with this luck. I didn't even get peanuts on the plane. What kind of a flight doesn't even have peanuts or pretzels? I asked for some anyways. You had to buy them. Ridiculous. I am not paying for 12 peanuts.

I was the last passenger on the plane due to this over-booking (almost) fiasco. This meant that we should have taken off relatively soon. I sat down, buckled up, and worked on a word search in the newspaper. The little girl behind me wanted to do some puzzle in her magazine too but didnt have pencil. I lent her mine. Sometimes, I'm nice :)

So I'm done with the first word search and we are still sitting on the runway. The pilot comes on the PA system, "We are experiencing a problem with the fuel tank. It's going to be a little while." Just what everyone wants to hear! You could actually see people starting to panic. Now they were going to be late for connecting flights and I'm sure everyone jumped to wost case scenario mode.. surely, we were going to blow up and die from the gas tank. I, on the other hand, just kept searching for words, the word "palm" actually. Twenty minutes later, we got gas added to our tank which made the cabin smell like gas. People were abuzz with worries. "Is everything okay?" "Is this normal?" The poor flight attendants probably answered the same question 10 times. Then we had to wait because we were out of take off order and needed the okay from the flight control folks. Finally we took off and you guess it, we lived! No explosion. The flight went well actuallly, but we were about an hour behind schedule. I only had a 1hr 5 min layover. This was going to be a tough one.

I could see the look of panic in the eyes of the girl next to me. I asked her if she was okay. She was probably my age and looked terrified. She told me she was headed to Lisbon and had two more connecting flights. If she was late for this next one, she would miss them all and not make it time for a wedding the next day. Lisbon. Lisben? Libsin? Sounded familiar. But where the heck was it? I ran through some countries in my head. It was a county, right? Maybe a city? Geography was never ever my strong suit. Sounded European. But who was I to guess? I felt like an idiot. Surely I couldn't ask her. Especially not now that over 3 minutes had gone by. She had said Lisbon so casually, as if everyone should really know - like Paris or something. To my relief, the guy between us leaned over and asked her where it was. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who sat pondering this. Portugal. Never would have guessed that one. I was leaning towards Germany or one of those countries over there. Anyways, she called the flight attendant over to ask about the distance between terminals and the woman told her there was one other girl headed to Lisbon too. She was the row infront of us. So the three of us engaged in some discussion, sitting on the tarmack, waiting to get off. Turns out the other girl was going to Lisbon for a wedding too! You can imagine the suspensful moment when they tried to figure out if they were going to the same wedding! They weren't. So as we were waiting to get off, I realized my other flight was already boarding. I had just moments to make it up all the way up B terminal and down the C terminal. A pretty decent distance. About 10 people around us got involved in this Lisbon/Terminal B&C discussion. Look at that, I was community building! It was like a whole group conversation of total strangers who hadn't spoken at all the last 2 hours.

Finally, the doors opened and we got off the plane. Me and the Lisbon ladies booked it off the plan. Litterally, starting running. In case you have been skimming and not reading this thoroughly, which I wouldn't blame you for, you should know I am wearing sneakers and they checked my carry on, so all I have is a laptop and little wristlet purse. So Im running and I bump into a guy, ran up the ramp and down the terminal as fast as I possibly could. EXCUSE ME! I yelled as I dodged rolling suitcases, children tying shoes, and people making phone calls. Running around people is harder than just regular running. Thank goodness for the sneaks. I wrapped my messenger bag around my chest, held onto my purse, and kept jogging. Now, I always, always, make fun of the people who run in airports. Why would you ever schedule your flights so close together? This scenario had never occurred to me. And now I was one of them. I pretended I was on the Amazing Race. GO FASTER! I made it 1/2 way when I got a cramp in my side. It's been about a year since I did any serious cardio. Wheezing, I began to think that if I HAD to run from a dog or a killer, I'd certainly be bitten, or killed, or both. No way I could outrun someone. My new game plan is that if I am being chased, I'm going to make it easy for the person and just give up, shrug and let them kill me right away. Why run for 10 minutes only to be killed anyways?!

So I'm running again and trying to catch my breath and I make it to the gate just as my zone was boarding. Victory! I hope the Portugese made their connections too. As I walked down the ramp, or jetway if you will, I could feel that my face was bright red. I was still dying and thought I was going to cough up my lung. I got on the plane told the flight attendant I needed water A-SAP. Like before the regular drink time. His reply? "Anything for a Tarheel" noticing my UNC t-shirt. I considered just nodding my head, but no, I couldn't lie, even when I couldn't breathe. "I'm not from there!" I managed to squeak out. Sipping my water, I ventured down the aisle, found row 15 and plopped my self down, leaning my head back on the seat and closing my eyes. Wow. Time to get back to the gym. (Side note, next week, I am vowing to go to the gym at least twice and now that it's on here, it's official.) I sat around a bit, and the last passenger got on the plane, just across the aisle from me. She told the flight attendant that this was not her real seat. The boy behind me was in her seat. Then he said, she's in my seat, putting his hand on the back of my chair. The first woman said she didnt want to fight and would just sit in the open seat. About 4 minutes go by in my slightly blacked-out world when my oxygen deprived brain realizes that I am in the wrong seat and was the cause of this scene. Oops. Too late now. That was 4 minutes ago. And so I just looked down and pretended not to know. Maybe I could play off the "I dont speak English card". I considered this incase they asked me later. But I don't know any language good enough to really do that. I know some Spanish, but not enough to be so fluent that I wouldn't know English. And someone would surely know Spanish and I couldn't get away with acting ignorant. Not a good idea.

So there I was sitting in my/his seat and I start coughing up a storm. My throat felt like it was pretty much blocked. Maybe I should tell the woman next to me that I am not sick, just dying from lack of exercise. I coughed and coughed and tried to convince myself to hold it in. But as you may know, trying not to cough/sneeze/do something makes you want to do it even more. And so I kept on making hideous noises. She probably thought whatever I had was catchy. I contemplated telling her I had the flu. Or better yet, the bird flu. Saying I had SARS would be fun too. Everyone would want a mask. Then my little mind just went into over drive, plotting things. What if I said I had SARS and just happened to have an envelope of powdered sugar that looked like anthrax. If I was going to scare them, I might as well go all out. I didn't think the TSA people would like that very much, so I put those thoughts away. I sat back and relaxed, still coughing up a storm. The flight attendants were doing their safety demo. I considered pulling out my air mask just to help me catch my breath. Should I still be dying, 10 minutes later?! This couldn't' be good. I started planning out my gym regiment.

It was only a 35 minute flight home, so I didn't bother taking out my ipod. I just sat and thought quietly to myself, observing the others around me. The woman across the aisle was listening to some crazy hi-tech mp3-like device while following along with her finger on a musical score. The top the page said California Pops Orchestra. Fancy! Who knew California even had a Pops, The piece was called Pevanne, or something like that. I thought it sounded more like a type of pasta than a musical number. The girl behind her had a backpack on her lap. Sticking out of it was a huge orange semi-see through plastic tube. It stuck out about 2 feet from the bag, making it visible above the seat. In it was a piece of paper rolled up. I decided it had to be either a time capsule or a treasure map. Obviously.

And that was essentially the end of my day. I got off the plane, successfully found my luggage, and got to my rental car. It's a 2011 Ford Escape. Leather seats, heated. Sirius satellite radio. Heated rearview mirrors. The whole shebang. There are even lights in the cupholders and under the dash. You can change the color. I am quite fond of the hot pink. Makes me feel like I am in a limo. I'll do a review later, but so far, it's my favorite car. Too bad I only have it for 3 days!


Here's to ham and cheese!