Seriously Tired

So the past week has been hellish. This whole damn summer has been the longest, most stressful, most upsetting few months of my entire life. And when things are worked out, I'll write about it, but right now everything is still up in the air.

So instead of boring and depressing everyone, I will make up for my atrocious lack of posts this summer with a short bit of funny. Names have been changed to protect the crazy innocent.

Kiki's friend was flying home for a few weeks now that summer session is over. She had asked Kiki to give her a ride to the small local airport, and Kiki had, oooooh so generously, agreed. She's a sucker that way.

"See you Tuesday," her friend had said. "Oh, what time are you picking me up Tuesday?" her friend had asked. Kiki, rather than checking the flight itinerary that had been forwarded to her, simply asked what time the plane left. "7:50 am." "I'll pick you up at your house at 6 am. See you Tuesday morning!"

Tuesday morning, Kiki woke up at 5 am, which was kinda hard given that she hadn't gone to bed until midnight. But she showered, made herself her favorite latte, grabbed an uptempo itunes mix, and hopped in the car.

Kiki knew something was wrong as soon as she drove up. The house was dark, and for the first time ever, her friend was not out the door before the engine was off. Kiki pulled over, got out, and knocked on the door.

A minute later, the door opened a crack, and her friend, bent over as if to hide a state of undressedness, peered through. "What?" "WHAT?"

"Are you ready?"
"No - Tuesday." The door opened a little more.
"It is Tuesday."
"Today? Tuesday?????"
"... Yes." The door opened wide, and Kiki stepped in.
"Are you sure?"
"... ... uh, yeah. It's definitely Tuesday."
"What? The 15th?"
"Yes."

And then it happened. The friend freaked out. She ran in a circle around the living room, emitting a high-pitched, squealing, bat-like noise.

Kiki just stood there for a moment. Part of her analyzed the situation - it was 6:10 am, the sun wasn't even up, she had had about 2 sips of her coffee, and the woman in front of her was screaming fit to wake up the neighbors.

But most of her mind was occupied thinking very rude things, mostly along the lines of "shut the hell up," and "what are you, a walking teakettle?" Various cruel and friendship-ruining verbal options sprang to the tip of her toungue. Vitriol ran through her head.

Now, Kiki thinks these mean things all the time, and often amuses her friends with them afterwards, but she never has quite enough spite in her to actually say such things to people's faces. It's a character flaw that she will probably have to deal with until she snaps and becomes the cranky old cat lady down the block. Sometimes, she is just being internally snarky. But sometimes, especially 6 am-no-coffee-yet sometimes, she really really really wants to say it. One day, she will.

But this particular Tuesday morning, she went all nicey-nice again, and all Kiki said was "calm down. We have plenty of time, just grab your suitcase and throw on some clothes, and we'll go."

The dervish moved into the bedroom. Words began to emerge from amid the dolphin-squeaks.

"Oh my god!" eeeeeee "Oh no!!" eeeeeeee *gasp for air* eeeeeeee
"Calm down, I'm sure you've already packed, just throw on some clothes..."
"I was sure it was tomorrow! Wasn't my flight on Wednesday?"

Again the unhelpful thoughts poured into Kiki's brain. "How the f*@# am I supposed to know that?" and "holy crap, you just asked me 162 times if today was really Tuesday, but you think the flight is Wednesday?" and "it's too frickin frackin early for this." Again she wimped out, and spoke up like the civilized person she so often pretends to be.

"Maybe you should get out your tickets and check."

So the friend got her tickets out of her purse and read them with the rising-question intonation that is so pervasive among young women lately. This, if noted under normal circumstances, would have make Kiki proud that her friend was becoming so comfortable with colloquial English. But, perhaps due the sonar-ping vibrations still echoing around her brain cavity, it went unnoted until later.

"7:50 am, Wednesday?"
...
"OK... ... ... I'm tired. See you tomorrow."

And when Kiki's other friends heard the story, they unanimously offered the opinion that her friend should have to take a cab the next day. But Kiki, being the afformentioned sucker, woke up at 5 am Wednesday too, and this time got her friend to the freaking airport. But she expects some sort of kick-ass souvenier when her friend gets back. Damnit.