Slam Dunk, Suckah!

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1. Today, I continue the saga of my Labor Day weekend vacation.

2. You'll recall from yesterday's post that I began the weekend by revisiting my lunch the hard way all across Alabama.

3. It was an auspicious start.

4. Thankfully, once we reached our destination, the only excitement to be had came in the form of seeing family again and discovering my mother in law had the excellent foresight to bring pans of brownies with her to the hotel.

5. I can't say the same for Saturday morning.

6. As I'm a fan of personal hygiene, I took a shower. I had no difficulty turning on the water. No difficulty adjusting the direction of the water. And no difficulty pointing the little triangular arrow on the faucet right between the H and the C to achieve the perfect not-too-hot, not-too-cold water temperature.

7. All in all, I figured the shower and I had an understanding and therefore didn't hesitate to step in.

8. What I didn't know? The shower was a sadistic, calculating menace with clear sociopathic tendencies. Once I was both thoroughly wet and thoroughly covered in soap bubbles and shampoo (and therefore unable to make an immediate exit), the shower's true nature emerged with a vengeance.

9. The water pressure dropped and the water cooled to the point of being uncomfortable.

10. I turned to face the now faltering stream of water, only to have the water pressure rebound with enough force to slap me in the face with a significant stream of truly-uncomfortably-cool water.

11. Huddled to the side of the shower to avoid the majority of the blast, I reached for the nozzle and made the fatal mistake of believing that H stood for Hot.

12. H did not stand for Hot.

13. H stood for How Do You Like Them Apples, Suckah?

14. I turned the nozzle toward H. The water remained cool. Not to be deterred, I turned it further toward the H, desperately waiting for the water to warm up.

15. It didn't.

16. But neither did it become cooler.

17. Because I still didn't fully understand the nature of the beast, I flipped the nozzle ALL THE WAY toward the H and waited for the change in temperature.

18. It changed, alright.

19. The water went from noticeably cool to FREEZING in the space of two seconds.

20. Freezing.

21. I cannot over-emphasize the FREEZING here.

22. I scrambled to turn the nozzle back toward C and was relieved to feel the temperature rise out of hypothermia territory.

23. My morning drama, however, was far from over.

24. As I was drying my hair, all the boys left with Clint for Grandma and Grandpa's room. I spent a few minutes with the hair dryer, a few minutes on make up, and then decided to find the hair clip I'd packed.

25. I was fairly certain I'd tossed it into the large zip up compartment located on the front of the bag I'd used to pack all of our personal hygiene items. A quick scan of the pocket's interior revealed an assortment of items, but not the one I was looking for. Because in my experience hair clips often slide to the bottom of the bag and lurk beneath everything else, I pushed my hand past the flotsam of hair brushes, toothbrushes, and containers of deodorant, grasped a rounded, oblong object, and pulled it out.

26. Something was lurking beneath the flotsam in the compartment. And it wasn't my hair clip.

27. It was a gigantic black beetle.

28. And I was holding it in my hand.

29. Yes, dear reader, I screamed.

30. And then threw the beetle onto the nearest surface.

31. Which happened to be a bed.

32. Which threw me into a panic because A) what if the nasty bug crawled into the covers and we couldn't find him or B) what if the nasty bug crawled under the bed and we couldn't find him or C) what if he had FRIENDS waiting for me all throughout the luggage in our room?

33. If any of the above were true, we'd have to check out. There were simply no other viable options.

34. With my blood-curdling scream still ringing in my ears (Yes, it deserved the adjective blood-curdling...I'm still surprised none of the neighbors called the cops in the absolute certainty the woman in the room beside theirs had been murdered), I grabbed my phone and called Clint with the (possibly frantic) request that he come back to the room RIGHT THAT INSTANT to rescue me from the beetle.

35. I know. The shame of it should probably overwhelm me. But the beetle was the size of MY THUMB and I had HELD IT WITH MY BARE HAND. Sue me.

36. Clint came right back to the room, identified the bug as a stink bug, and then scooped it up and tossed it outside.

37. And yes, he laughed at me.

38. And when I insisted he check EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF LUGGAGE for more beetles, he laughed even more. But he did it. And I told him he was my hero.

39. Despite my dramatic start to the day, the rest of the day was nice. We had brunch with the entire extended family, spent time with Clint's grandmother, and then all the girls decided to head to a nail spa to get manicures and/or pedicures.

40. I've never had an official pedicure. Mostly because I wasn't sure how I felt about having a stranger work on my feet. I prefer to do it myself. But everyone talked me into getting one and so, with a bit of trepidation, I subjected myself to the procedure with stern warnings to the nice young woman wielding the nail file that I might not respond well to that awful filing directly across the top of the nail.

41. She smiled and didn't believe me.

42. Turns out, the filing across the top of the nail wasn't an issue.

43. It was the pumice stone and some sort of buffing/scouring/torture pad she used to scrub across the bottom of my foot.

44. Turns out, the bottom of my feet are really sensitive.

45. I nearly kicked the poor girl in the face.

46. Because she was determined to finish her job AND keep all her teeth intact, I resorted to grabbing the arms of the chair and writhing in laughing agony as she attacked my soles.

47. Everyone in the salon was laughing at me.

48. Fortunately, with my track record, I'm not only used to people laughing at something I'm doing, I'm quite comfortable joining in.

49. In fact, I was able to laugh at my Shower From Hell experience.

50. And the Beetle Incident.

51. Know when I wasn't laughing?

52. When I got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, sat down, and realized a millisecond too late to alter my course of action that my hubby had kindly left the seat UP.

53. Just what I needed to end my day.

54. A slam dunk.