The very end of November of last year I moved out of my parent's house and moved into an apartment in Arlington to be closer to the school. I have a great roommate...for the most part we get along. Obviously it is not going to be perfect; we both are going to do things that annoy each other. For example...I never buy groceries so I drink all her milk, or sometimes she tends to act more like 'mom' then roommate -but its all cool.
This post though, has nothing to do with my roommate or my apartment, but there is a point some what relevant to my moving out. I have learned many lessons since moving out of my parents, such as "money does not grow on trees". Yeah, that was a tough one to learn -I am not one of those 'savers'. Well, I can't say that completely because I absolutely hate buying food or anything that I need, but when it comes to my brother who only lives 1.2 miles (exactly) away from me I tend to become a big spender. I absolutely adore my older brother...he is seriously a gift from God -nothing compares to his adorableness. Its really not fair. I can spend $50 on him and not even think twice...its just not right.
Despite all the lessons learned (I will post some of those later) I believe what has benefited me the most about moving out is that I have come to know myself better.
Before I moved out I knew that at times I could really be a klutz/air-head, but never had I even thought about how much of one I was. Every once in a while I do something quite silly, something I can easily shake my head at and laugh about.
Example:
One fine day when I was leaving work to go home I decided to stop at the atm at Wells Fargo to deposit my check. Since it was such a pretty day outside I decided to drive around with my sunroof down. Anyway, I pulled in into the parking lot, parked and rolled up my windows. Before I got out I debated whether or not to close my sunroof -but quickly decided to leave it open because the atm was right there so I would be able to keep an eye on my car. So I got out and shut the door, and right as I heard the door shut I had a literal *face-palm* moment. My keys were inside the car...my locked car. Even though I knew it was locked I checked all the doors...locked. Yay. But thankfully I had an 'aha' moment -my sun roof was open.
I am a shy person...one of the most easily embarrassed people, so I actually thought about not climbing through my sunroof to get in. Realizing though, that that was stupid I walked around to the back of my car, climbed it, and dropped through my sun roof. Once in the car I literally laughed at myself...it was just so me, and on the bright side I had probably made someone's day as they watched me climb my car in a busy parking lot.
Every day I seem to do something like the example above...and most of the time I don't end up inconveniencing myself. When I tell my humorous stories to my family they amusingly shake their heads or roll their eyes. Every time I do something like this I just tell myself: "this is just one of your many endearing qualities". I say almost every time I do something silly. That was until a few weeks ago when I shut my car door (that was locked) with both keys and phone inside...and yes, no open sunroof.
This was one of the many weeks I had been spending the majority of my nights at my Aunt and Uncle's house (yes, I live in an apartment but never actually stay there). I was on my way to their house from work, but decided to stop at Albertson's to pick up some ice cream (the previous night I had had some of my Uncle's Ben and Jerry's and felt guilty for it). Instead of taking in my purse I decided to just put my debit card in my back pocket. Anyway, I got out of my car and shut the door *face-palm*...right as the door shut I realized I had left my keys in my car, *face-palm*...I had debated whether or not to leave my sunroof down and had decided not to. *Mega face-palm* -After a quick search of my person I realized I had also left my phone in the car. FACE PALM, FACE PALM, FACE PALM, FACE PALM....
At this point I was feeling pretty stupid but I walked into the store and asked to use the phone.
"This sounds really stupid, but I left my keys and phone in my car...can I use your phone?"
Graciously they did, so I called my brother and prayed he was in the area (he is never at his apartment either).
"Hey bro, where are you at?"
"Working with Dad."
"Oh, well since you are not in the area would you mind calling Nate? I am kind of marooned at Albertson's...I left my keys and phone in the car."
Thanks to my wonderful brother he was able to get in touch with his roommate, who was luckily unoccupied at the time to come and try to break in to my car. About 20-30 minutes later he showed up, but quickly determined that he would not be able to break in unless I was willing to pay for a new window (I was definitely not willing). Not wanting to break my window I decided I would get a Lock Smith; I was not excited about how much it would probably end up costing but at this point I figured I deserved it because of how inconvenient I was being to myself and to Nate. So we called the guy and he said it would cost about eighty dollars and it would take him about an hour to get there. Luckily though, Nate and I are good friends so it wasn't too bad waiting out in the parking lot -it was really nice spending time with him. About an hour later we got a call from the Lock Smith company.
"Hello?"
"I would like to apologize ma'm. We had sent a guy out to go to you about half an hour ago, but when he was on the highway he got rear-ended by another car. I apologize again, but I would suggest you try to find someone else."
FACE-PALM ^2
I was a little dis-hearted and feeling pretty guilty for causing a guy to wreck, but Nate called another Lock Smith company; this time I was told it would only be $40 dollars and it would take about thirty minutes to get to me. Luckily, the man arrived to Albertson's safely and was able to un-lock my car and charged me only half of what it was going to originally cost. Despite being fairly lucky with the absurdity of the situation I couldn't help but be a little upset with myself. Not only was I out forty dollars, but I had wasted over two hours of my time and my friend's time (I am so thankful he is as patient as he is)...oh, and even though all of this was in the pursuit of ice cream I had no ice cream.
Even though a lot of time was wasted I am glad this happened to me...I learned that I need to be more careful and not be so rushed. AND that I cannot write off everything I do silly as "endearing" -sometimes it is just plain stupid.
