the trip from hell

I've really lost my travel skills. I'm in Georgia this week for a work trip and it's been a disaster from day one, with the exception of my visit with my uncle Joe and and Sri, who live here in Georgia.

I realized as I was driving to the airport early Sunday morning that I forgot my phone charger. Then I left my GPS and printed driving directions on the passenger seat of my car (I haven't gotten much sleep in the past 3 weeks because of work, so I blame that). Then there was a huge line to check bags (I had to check my bag because frontier now charges to put it in the overhead and the cost is more than a checked bag). 35 minute wait to check a bag. Ridiculous.

Then security was a mess. Even though I got to the airport 1 hour and 45 minutes early I didn't get to the gate until 25 minutes before my flight took off. The guy I was sitting next to farted the whole flight.

Then I went to retrieve my bag from the baggage claim at atlanta airport. Some rude little chinese dude shoved me out of the way as I was trying to get my bag to get his bag and then dropped his bag on my right foot. I was not in his way, he was just being a dick. He left before I could punch him.

Anyway, I pulled up directions to my uncle's house on my phone and figured, hey, I'll use my phone gps. The directions were long, I got lost, and my uncle had to come get me and have me follow him back to his house. Which is a really cool house with lots of land. My aunt Sri has 6 gardens and grows tons of food. We had a salad and green beans from the garden and my aunt Sri made me an icepack for my foot, which was starting to swell.

I headed to the town where I'm working around 5 pm with printed directions that my uncle Joe made for me (he also made me repeat the directions 3 times back to him before I left to make sure I didn't get lost). I had realized as I was leaving his house that I forgot to also bring my laptop power supply so I stopped to buy one (it didn't work with my laptop, and they have different laptops here, so I'm laptopless).

Around that time my foot was hurting badly. But I did some checking and all the urgent care places were closed. I figured it would be better by morning but it was worse. I had to wear my running shoes to work because I couldn't get my right foot into any other pair of shoes I had packed. I was meeting the project sponsor and I was freaking out but she was cool about my running shoes even though everyone else was dressed really nicely.

At the end of today I decided to get my foot x-rayed. I went to an emergency room that was close to my office. Everyone was really nice to me, including a nurse named Scarlett who let me fake smoke while I was getting my x-rays.

I was texting with a friend of mine when a nurse suddenly showed up in my room carrying crutches. I was like oh, no, those are NOT for me. She was like yeah they are sunshine, you have a hairline fracture. I asked to see the doctor and we then had a protracted discussion and negotiation about what they were going to do about my fracture which involved me lying and saying I would keep my foot elevated and not walk much or take the stairs or carry heavy things like my work back pack. In the end I talked the doctor into giving me a walking boot. I was told by Scarlett that they came in blue so I was like at least it will be a pretty color but the doctor came back with a black boot and said they were out of blue boots and out of my size so not only is my boot ugly, it's too big. I think he was kind of pissed at me for not taking the crutches. He told me to make sure my toes don't turn black and warned me to check for blood clots in my leg after my flight home (??????).

Scarlett helped me get the boot on and then took me right to my car door in a wheel chair. It was ridiculous. And then I accidentally set off my car alarm where the car honks the horn loudly and Scarlett was laughing instead of helping me figure out how to turn off the alarm and then she forgot to lock the wheels of the wheel chair I was in so I almost ate shit when I stood up and we were laughing and basically causing a scene in the parking lot. People who were rushing into the ER stopped and stared at us until I finally was able to get into my car.

Will show a pic of my ugly boot if it ever transfers from my phone to my email. And the hospital called my sister because I forgot my pain prescription which was for a pain killer I told them I was allergic to. Sigh.

I'll have to save the fart story that happened today for tomorrow. I need to track down some food for dinner.