When I finally reach my hotel there is only about half an hour until my event begins and I am plagued by two things: 1) I am starving because I haven’t eaten since I left my house at six thirty in the morning and 2) WHAT HAS CHICAGO DONE TO MY HAIR?
Apparently wandering around the outside of the airport in 90 degree heat in The Windy City did not culminate in a good look for me. Unfortunately for me I am just insecure vain insecure enough to care about that.
I quickly call room service because there is no way I can summon up the energy to play Just Dance 4 on an empty stomach and inquire as to how quickly I can get some crab cakes sent to my room. They tell me half an hour which is quite unfortunate as that is when I am expected in the hotel lobby. “What if I just order soup?” I plead in desperation. Twenty minutes is when the soup is due up and so I turn my attention to my hair.
I have forgotten to pack anything that might help me with this situation. Hairbrushes, curling irons, scissors. I’ve got nothing. Except for underwear. I have lots and lots of underwear.
When I was packing for this trip Jeff grabbed my stack of undies and made a move to put them away in the dresser. “No, those are what I’m taking on the trip” I told him. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Honey? Do I even want to know why you are taking six pairs of underwear for a trip that is less than twenty four hours long?” he asked.
Um, what if I get stranded somewhere Jeff? I can wear the same clothes for a few days straight and thanks to watching copious amounts of Man vs Wild + a few years of earning merit badges in the Girl Scouts I can snare a rabbit and cook it over an open fire. But I can NOT make do with just a single pair of underwear. So they are IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Obviously.
A quick glance around the hotel room unearths a hair dryer and in a stroke of genius I decide that I can wet my hair, use the (clean!) extra undies to wrap my hair in rag curls, blast them with the hair dryer to set and have them out before my soup arrives. Which I will then throw back like a shot (I think, I’ve never actually done a shot) and arrive in the lobby promptly at four pm. Holla!
Except that about nine minutes later I am in the middle of blow-drying my curls when I hear a knock on the door. I freeze and debate just not opening the door at all because there are five pairs of panties on my head but the thing is, here’s the thing: I am about to pass out from hunger. So I open the door, the room service attendant hands me a bowl of soup and I blurt out “YOU SAID TWENTY MINUTES! I WAS NOT GOING TO HAVE UNDERWEAR ON MY HEAD TEN MINUTES FROM NOW!”
And then I signed a ticket for a $17 dollar bowl of soup (SEVENTEEN DOLLARS) and commenced said blow-drying.
I know, you think it can’t get any more awkward than that right? OH, IT CAN.
I emerge from the limo-bus at the Wii U Experience event (Nintendo is fancy) and figuring that I’ve hit my awkwardness limit for the day I decide I may as well SING KARAOKE.
While I am waiting for my turn I discover that one of the Nintendo guys putting on the event looks exactly like my old college pastor. Who I remember has two brothers. And I’m like “This guy is Kevin Pound’s brother. I am one hundred percent sure of this.” So I tell him about how he looks just like this guy I know and is he his brother? He says no (I don’t believe him) and asks me if Kevin is a handsome guy, to which I offhandedly reply yes because I’m trying to figure out how to slyly take a picture of him with my cell phone because I need to send it to my best friends so I can be all “THIS GUY LOOKS JUST LIKE KEVIN POUNDS, RIGHT?” Validation is important to me.
Only he sees me doing this and winks at me and that is when I realize that this guy thinks that I am hitting on him because “You look just like my friend’s BROTHER” is totally a pick-up line. And secretly trying to take someone’s picture with your cell phone is something people do in seventh grade. And since my undewear-rag curls did NOT go according to my awesome plan, a seventh grader is what I resemble. So there’s that.
I have no idea how to save this situation so I say “I’m a mommy blogger!” because apparently I just assume that everyone around me can follow the train of thought happening inside my head. Then it’s my turn to sing and the song is CALL ME MAYBE and I’m all “Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe” and pretty much could not be more mortified except for that I’m sort of used to this sort of mortification at this point in my life.
And that’s how I kicked off my trip to Chicago. I had a blast the rest of the night and will at some point talk about the less embarrassing parts of my trip where I did not greet total strangers with pick up lines or underwear in my hair.
Part One & Part Two of my trip, which are not accompanied by awkward photos of me playing SiNG. I’m really glad someone caught this moment on camera.
Disclosure: While I am affiliated with Nintendo as a Brand Ambassador and they provided my travel/accommodations for the Wii U Experience, they quite definitely did not ask me to write this post. In fact, they are most likely reading this thinking to themselves “Selves, we are way in over our heads with this one.”
