With a capital S

I grew up in the for-real South, but apparently two summers in a place with reasonable temperatures and low humidity is all it takes to make me soft.  The fam and I have been in Louisville this week (yes, we're our of town - go rob our house!!), and from the moment we stepped off the plane, I've been pretty convinced I'm going to die at any moment.  I feel like I'm in the rainforest.  

Despite the inhumane weather conditions -- and sharing a room with Ben, who is two time zones off his schedule and has to nap in the car most days and has grown 1.1 new teeth this week -- we've had a really great trip.  Our adventures have included walking in a park by the Ohio river (with shaved ice to ward off my imminent death) and petting painted metal chickens:

And taking a picture on the bench where Daniel asked me to marry him:

We also had a playdate with some friends we know via the worldwide web, but I failed to push the memory card all the way into my camera, so I can't figure out if I actually have any pictures from that evening.  Sadly, that was not even close to being the stupidest thing I've done on this trip.  Today I did something truly Stupid.

Ben and I drove down to Nashville yesterday (more on the good parts of that trip later), just for one night.  We were two hours into the three-hour return trip today when I realized we were driving on a few tablespoons of gas.  So I pulled over into the next gas station I saw and reached for my wallet.  Which wasn't there.  Or anywhere else in the car.  That's right.  I left my wallet in Nashville.  That meant I had no cash, no cards, not even a driver's license.  My closest ally was Daniel, who was in class an hour away and didn't have a car anyway.  Pretty Stupid of me, right?

I felt like a con artist when I told Debra at the counter my sob story and asked if I could pay for gas by just giving her my credit card number.  Nope.  Ben's cuteness came in handy, though, and she felt sorry enough to buy me $10 of gas. 

The whole situation got me all flustered, and I made the Stupid decision that it would be rude to nurse Ben at a table in the air-conditioned gas station since I wasn't exactly a paying customer.  No, no.  I should instead sit outside in the car, in which I couldn't run the air conditioning and risk not having enough gas to get to Louisville.  Have I mentioned the heat yet?  I had the windows and a door open, but that doesn't do a lot when the heat index is 103.  

Bless Debra's sweet heart, she came to my rescue again.  She saw me in the car during her cigarette break and ordered me to go inside.  I have never been so happy in the dining area of a gas station before.

The rest of the day has passed without incident, and my wallet will get here before I need my ID to fly home (theoretically).  Really, as far as colossally Stupid moves go, this one didn't turn out so badly.  It definitely reminded me, though, that I am sometimes a total idiot, and I need to pay better attention to what I'm doing.  Or maybe I need to slow down?  I don't know what the lesson should be here.  The one thing I know for sure?  Debra from the BP station off I-65 in Elizabethtown, if you're reading this:  I love you.