I made appointments with AT&T and with some furniture installers on Monday morning and therefore needed to fly in on Sunday. I really am not a fan of flying on Sunday, for multiple reasons, but I had to do it this time. My flight was at 9:00pm (I wanted to waste as little of my Sunday as possible), which would have put me in Memphis around 10:30. Except my flight was late ... and my suitcase decided that it didn't want to fly on Sunday and stayed in Chicago for an extra night.
So at 11:45pm on Sunday evening, I pick up my rental car and head to the hotel, with no suitcase. The front desk clerk looks in her drawer of toiletries and comes up with a toothbrush (no toothpaste) and a comb. That's it. I figured that I needed at least toothpaste and deoderant for the next day (and would still be sporting the "no make-up, wet hair pulled up" look), so I asked if there was a wal-mart or walgreens nearby. Nope, nothing that's open 24 hours, and it is, after all, almost 1am by now. My best bet will be the convenience store down the road. And by convenience store, she means the gas station that smells like sewage and sells toothpaste for $4 for a tiny tube. So, toothpaste and deodorant in hand, I head back to the hotel.
It is then that I realize I didn't buy anything for my contacts. I'm faced with the "would you rather" question ... sleep in your contacts all night or soak your contacts in water overnight. Seems that neither is a good choice, but at 2am I decided that the water would be better and went to sleep.
I did set my alarm so that I'd wake up at 6:00, be ready to leave by 7:00, and arrive at the center by 8:00am. At 7:45 I woke up, bolted out of bed, and jumped in the shower. I was late, I couldn't get ready, had to put on old clothes, and was worried about what I was going to find when I tried to put my contacts in. The contacts had turned from a shade of blue to an ugly green in the water, and my eyes did everything they could to reject them. But, I got them in and walked around with itchy, red, watery, sensitive eyes all day. It was pretty.
First thing I found at the center when I arrived ...
I'll just tell you ... cockroaches. And all the locals know how to kill them. We saw about 3 of them throughout the day.
By the end of the day my suitcase had been delivered to my hotel, my eyes had been relieved by my glasses, and I had another center open and crossed off the list. yay!
On Tuesday I hit the road again, headed towards Forrest City, AR. There's not a lot in that city, let me tell ya. Our IT guy found 3 pairs of underwear in the ceiling. I have NO idea how they got there ... but he pulled one out to prove it to me ... so I took a picture.
And, by the end of Tuesday, I had another center finished. Woo hoo! That's 5 centers down, 3 to go!
Before I left Memphis, I had to check out Graceland ... by myself, because Gina and Robbie wouldn't join me. It was excellent! I'll post about that next ...
