I'll confess I was super excited about tonight's fair. Not just to be back in my element (let's face it, I'm not nearly as passionate about the reading, nor am I good at actual reading - should have read more as a kid I guess), but I'm excited to be in our home state. Almost all of my fairs last Fall were far away and students tend to have more interest in their home state school than some allegedly-similar-out-of-state-school-for-more-money. In Texas, everyone wanted to go to UT. In North Carolina, all I heard about was UNC and NC State. Florida kids didn't even want to go out of state. Typically, at a big fair, the home state school has a big table, maybe even 2 or 3 to accommodate space for all the interested students and parents. I certainly got a lot of interest for U- almost everywhere I went, but I dreamed for the attention of the locals. Tonight was finally my shot!
The fair tonight was about an hour from my house. Round trip, it was 87.4 miles or something like that. I had to calculate mileage earlier in the day to be comp-ed for gas, that's the only reason I knew. Here's where the story gets fun.... So I'm running "late", and by late, I mean I'd still be an hour early for the fair even with traffic, but I wanted to make sure I was good and early, just in case. As I got into the car in my driveway, I realized my gas light was on....and had been on for 17 miles. Whenever my light goes on, I always reset the trip because, as a total nerd who lives on the wild side, I've calculated that my little Focus will go 44 miles once the light goes on. Now, my car isn't fancy. It doesn't calculate things on it's own. It doesn't flash or ding as I progressively get closer and closer to death. Face it, it would pretty much just let me die in the dessert without much warning. So the simple solution here is obviously stop for gas. Duh. So I went to the gas station and took out my wallet. Cue the tense, anxiety building music.
Back story (this would be the black and white flash back in my sitcom) - last week I lost my debit card. I ordered a new one, but it hadn't arrived in the mail yet. Because of this, I had taken out one giant lump of cash and had been carrying it around with me. Maybe not smart. When I opened up my wallet at the tank, I found a whopping $10. Apparently, I am not very budget conscious and should look more into that later, but more relevant back story - at this point, I haven't eaten dinner. And not knowing if the evening fair would have dinner, I had to eat something before showing up (my friends will vouch that hungry me = cranky, terribly unpleasant me). Doing some quick calculations, I figured $3.18 for Mickey D's Dollar Menu and the remaining $7 would be for gas. Now, math was never my forte, but I did some more mental multiplication. With gas at almost $4 a gallon, $7 wasn't going to get me more than 2 gallons. Focus gets 22 mpg, so thats only 44 miles. Not going to make it home. Frantically, I dug around the mess in my car and scrounged up $3 more dollars. Thank you cup holders and secret compartments. I now had $10 for gas (appx. 3 gallons or 66 miles). I knew my math was rough (good thing we learned "guesstimates" in 3rd grade...I hated those...Why only guess when you could do the real math and know?! ....Apparently, now was the time you should be a solid guesser, especially as time was getting later and later.) I looked in my purse, which I had recently cleaned out and realized that my "emergency credit card" wasn't there. Nope. I had nothing but a huge stack of receipts and a license. Perhaps a couple dimes. I wasn't sure how this was all going to work, but I was willing to chance it. I was running late and getting there mattered more than getting back. Honestly, the first thought in my head as I began pumping gas was "Well! This will be great for the blog!!" and I chuckled out loud. Fortunately, I was on the phone with A who very very kindly offered to come pick me up if my car died, even though the ride to me would be way out of the way, especially on a busy schedule. It pays to have friends who love you! (thanks!!)
I made it to the fair with 40 minutes to spare, so I sat in the car and played a lot of Scrabble on my phone. Then I got in, set up the table, and got to work. This particular fair was quite small - only 20 colleges or so represented, many of which were in-state. The town had invited both of it's high schools and all of its 7th & 8th graders too, hoping someone would show up. A lot of college reps dislike the little kids. They aren't applying for a long time, so there's no money to be made off of them. They take all your promotional items and they don't have any good questions to ask except "Are the dorms cool?!!!!?". Personally, I love the kids. I figure, talk to kids about college when they are younger and get them thinking/planning for it early. I suppose it goes along with my "everyone needs an education" philosophy, but hey, what about brand loyalty?! The cigarette and beer companies do it. Why can't colleges?? Little 13 year old talks to a super awesome rep who makes the school seem like the Disneyland of Education and they go home to tell their parents that's where they want to go. Years later, the school is still in their head and maybe they'll apply! Worth a shot. Tonight's kids didn't have any good questions. I was a a little disappointed.....but I gave them my very best shot. It's hard to explain what a school offers when a kid doesn't even know what "courses" or "majors" are. I spent a lot of time explaining those two too. But of course, my booth was hopping all night long. I was in my glory. The out-of-state public school next to me and the small in-state private on the other side were complaining about low attendance. I was thinking my mouth was getting dry from all the talking. Surprisingly, the in-state kids had some different questions than those I encountered last year. Perhaps because they knew more about the school, or at least they thought they did. Either way, they kept me on my toes and a good time was had by all.
Admit it. It's always good to be on the winning team.
PS: I almost forgot... I made it home safely. It took days for me to realize this, but I forgot to calculate in that I already had just a little gas in my tank. That, plus my $10, was just enough. PHEW.
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