I had a near heart-attack this morning while I was working on my thesis. I'm almost done writing, so I've got my nose to the grind trying to get from the nebulous "almost done" to the semi-final "done," from which I can advance to "must defend my done-ness," followed by "edit and re-write to Professorial Approval" to "submit" and "hope to God I never see it again." So I was working on a section, writing a big long quote. I was looking at the document I was quoting and just letting my fingers do their thing on the keyboard, figuring I'd have a typo or two to fix. One of the words I had to type was a foreign word and thus needed to be in italics. Now, frequently my brain is faster than my fingers and instead of hitting "apple + i" (that's like ctrl+i for you PC freaks - oh don't get on my case! My next laptop will most likely be a PC for my empty pocket's sake) I'll hit "apple+space bar," which brings up some weird search bar in Microsoft Word that I never use. Eventually I'll notice that half my phrase is in the upper right corner of my screen instead of on the page where it should be and will groan and fix it.
Today, however, I had already pressed the space bar and the word I had to italicize began with the letter "h." Instead of hitting "apple + i," I hit "apple + h" and MY THESIS DISAPPEARED! OMG OMG OMG!!! I shrieked and then my brain remembered that "apple + h" means "Hide Screen" and not "Send to the Abyss." Unfortunately, I couldn't remember where it hid the screen and after a few terrifying wrong clicks my thesis returned, safe and sound. I hit "save" about a gazillion times, updated my facebook status with my recent near-calamity for the amusement of my friends and those other people.
This afternoon, I went out geocaching with saintvi. I was fortunate enough to be the First To Find (FTF) for a cache! Woohoo! It was about 65-70 feet off the coordinates and friggin' tiny, so it took some time to find. BUT I FOUND IT! Bwahahaha! I was a co-FTF with saintvi once before, but she was the one to spot it. Not so this time! Booyeah!
When we arrived at another cache location, I looked over at her and said, "You know what would be fun? Climbing out the window [of the van]!" She just snorted and opened her door, laughing as I contemplated the window. I got my feet, head and arms out, leaving my butt poking inside the van. I decided that wasn't going to work so well for me. You see, we were parked on the side of the road by a ditch, so the ground right there sloped downward. I flopped the upper half of my body back inside the van and slid out feet-first...and kept sliding...and kept sliding (and shrieked a little) until my feet finally found the ground! Mom just laughed at me and we continued on to find the cache.
As we were returning to the van she asked if I was planning on getting in through the window. I raised my chin and said, "Maybe I will!" taking it as a challenge. I picked my way through the overgrowth around the van and contemplated the window again. Thanks to that stinkin' slope, the bottom of the window was up to my boobs. Normally I'd just jump and throw my body over the barrier when it comes to that height. However, I was afraid that in the process of jumping forward I'd conk my head on the top of the window frame. I waved my hand from head to top of the frame a few times, getting a feel for how much room I had then said, "Bugger it!" and jumped, wincing in anticipation of cranial impact. Lucky for me, I cleared it! Woohoo! Except then I was stuck with my back end dangling out the window and my front end teetering. I was just about to say "the heck with it!" and slip backward and get in the normal, boring way when I shifted slightly and my belt cleared the window. Then I was able to teeter more in the direction of the car than the ground. From there, I did a wild air-swim/commando-crawl until I was sprawled on the driver's seat and the passenger's seat with only my feet hanging out the window. I righted myself and grinned. What fun!
So there we go. Next time you're complaining that your life is boring, try climbing into your car like one of those NASCAR or demolition derby drivers. That's what I had in mind, but it didn't turn out as graceful. I blame the minivan. How often do you see a NASCAR or demo derby driver gliding through the window of a minivan? That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
*wild laughter*
"I'm going MAD!"
