Sometimes I'm a Pinhead

Last week, I sat outside on the porch for dinner. The weather was perfect and my plate was filled with baked green tomatoes and I had a glass of wine in hand. After a few bites, an annoying mechanical noise filled my ears.

At first, I wondered if it might be a passing city vehicle with its alarm going off (not that I'm near a city, but that's what it sounded like). Perhaps one of the cats had been abducted by aliens who reprogrammed its meow. Or, maybe the neighbors had an ATM in their driveway.

Yes, it really sounded like an ATM. I got up to look at the neighbors' driveways when I passed by my back patio door. The noise was louder.

It was coming from inside.

It was my oven.

The timer had gone off and apparently there's a button for turning off the timer instead of it just stopping like normal timers. To be fair, it's a new oven, and when my tomatoes were done, I just took them out, figuring the timer would take care of itself. Fifteen minutes later, the timer was still going off. Yes, it took me fifteen minutes to figure out that the neighbors did not get an ATM.

Sure, that's embarrassing, but there's more.

This past Saturday night, I went to a local grocery store to pick up a few things. A rather cute guy was in the store and I saw him a few times as I shopped, but figured he was way too young for me.

He ends up behind me in the checkout lane. As I put my meager items on the conveyor belt, I wondered what he might be thinking of them. What does one think of a single woman on a Saturday night buying yogurt, one orange, one onion and 12 cans of cat food (they were on sale!)? Uh-huh.

Then some guys got behind him and they seemed to know each other and were yucking it up and joking. I turned to smile at their jokes. THEY were buying two twelve packs of Leinenkugel. My favorite beer. And then there's me, single-Saturday-night-12-cans-of-cat-food-buyer.

I paid for my groceries and went to the parking lot. Since my little black pick up truck had not been driven for a while, I got in it. I started it up, resulting in the usual puff of blue smoke. I looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't run anyone over. I noticed the cute guy. In the puff of blue smoke.

He walked around the back of the truck and then by me, in the driver's seat. I waved politely. He waved back.

Then he got in his shiny black Hummer. (not code)

And, just for documentation purposes of further pin-headedness, a week and a half ago, I went through McDonald's drive-through. The conversation went something (or maybe exactly) like this:

"Welcome to McDonald's may I take your order?"

"Yes, I'd like a small medium coffee with-"

"What?"

(louder) "I'D LIKE A SMALL MEDIUM COFFEE WITH-"

"Ma'am, you keep saying 'small medium.' Which do you want?"


Obviously, what I needed was a HUGE coffee.