BUCKLE UP

I have accepted the fact that my life is essentially a sitcom and decided to use it as form of blog entertainment. So maybe someone can at least benefit from the recent situations I have gotten myself into or fate has brought upon me. And I think some of these moments should live on past my journal pages and what’s a more permanent medium than the internet… So here goes nothing…

I have been traveling a ton the past two months due to work and personal trips. Along the way, I have learned LOTS about event planning and logistics. Learning on the job in event world involves mistakes having a ton of eyewitnesses. I can now look back on most of them and laugh but to be honest some of the stories I am about to share were very humbling in the moment, but I learned no matter how embarrassing the situation was.

Full disclosure some of the best stories will remain unpublished because they would have to be listed under a pseudonym. The top secret tales remain in my journal which I seemed to have misplaced sometime in the past month so it could be anywhere from Tacoma, WA to Los Angeles, CA. Let the scavenger hunt begin :) Let me know if you find it… access to the stories, my most vulnerable thoughts, and deepest secrets are a pretty good reward, but I will also pitch in to buy the finder ice cream. I will even pay extra so you can get a waffle cone. I don’t like to be stingy when it comes to ice cream… but the finder has a limit of one topping cause Silicon Valley cost of living is no joke.  

The Curse to Reverse

Event: Sea Otter Classic (Monterey, California)

I was put in charge of checking out of my team’s Airbnb, near Big Sur after the Sea Otter Classic. While I am packing the van, out of my peripheral I see a deer walk up the driveway and stroll through the opened kitchen door, like he owned the place. I just stood there thinking about how I now have to call my boss and explain to her and then the Airbnb owner why a deer is running amuck in the living room. But before I could spiral further the deer backed out of the kitchen and it was as if nothing happened.

The animal curse continued that day during the home stretch back to the office. I was on the phone with my brother, Kevin, when a crow hit the window of my rental car. But it wasn’t like I hit it while it was mid-glide across the highway. It was as if the simulation broke, and it dropped from the sky landing beak first on my windshield. After the fatal contact, I frantically hung up on my brother and my Spotify music automatically started planning over the speakers where it left off before the call. The song playing was my favorite song from when I was a kid, Mocking Bird by Eminem, of course (I could rap it word for word since it was released in 2004… I was 5… might need to go to therapy and dive into that at some point in my life). The lyrics played “And if that mockingbird don't sing and that ring don't shine, I'ma break that birdy's neck.” Apparently, the mockingbird didn’t sing cause I for sure caused some irreversible damage to that feathered creature’s trachea.

Side Note: Birds are avians… not mammals! Just in case you get asked at trivia to list NFL teams with mammal mascots… DO NOT list the Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, or Baltimore Ravens. Do not be like my trivia team. Don’t know if we will ever recover from the embarrassment of the team next to us having to grade our avian answers.

DEPOT WILL NEVER BE HOME

Event: Babes in the Dirt (Lebec, California)

It was my responsibility to bringing the mechanisms to secure our tent to the ground for an event in the desert, Babes in the Dirt. My guy, Russell, from Home Depot encouraged me to buy their massive stakes and play sand. To be clear there should be no hate or blame on Russell because I don’t think I properly briefed him on the mission. I also knew what he picked out for me most likely was not going to set me up for success, but I did not want to hurt his feelings and question the local Home Depot legend. Unfortunately, most of the play sandbags broke in the parking lot before making it to my vehicle. The remaining ones didn’t hold down much and quickly shared the same fate of the other bags resulting in sand spilling out around our tent space. So, I essentially paid to add piles of sand to the desert, an ecosystem that probably has enough, and the parking lot of Home Depot. The desert ground below the 2 inches of top sand ended up being the same firmness of cement, but that doesn’t really matter because I didn’t bring a mallet to hammer the stakes down anyways if I could. As a result, I now know the importance of wrap around durable sandbags and that a tent CAN fly 20 feet into the air.

Sidenote: Russell has “travelled the world” and adamantly believes “Home Depot is his favorite place on earth.” Every time I go there, which is way more frequently then I would want... I have been averaging 4 trips a week (my ideal number of Home Depot visits in a year is 0)…  Russell meets me at the door and says “Let’s take a lap. What are we getting today?” and then once I have my purchases he asks if I “love home depot yet?”… my answer is always “no.” And then I leave and what he gave me usually doesn’t work which is probably why I frequent there so often. But he means well and is determined to make me love it there. I appreciate the effort Russ… but keep dreaming. 

On my drive back, I stopped at a gas station to grab some snacks. A lady chomping away on some fried mozzarella cheese sticks kindly asked me if I could read the small font on some food labels and tell her the nutrition facts. She was hoping to find a “good source of magnesium and vitamins.” She then preceded to handed me: Snickers, Go Gurt Yogurt (3 different flavors), and Starbursts. She was in shock when I read her the labels. She decided to go with the Strawberry Go Gurt. I grabbed a banana and orange for myself and went to check out. She then got in line behind me and said, “WOW you didn’t want to tell me they had fruit here?!” In my defense I did not know I was supposed to be making nutritional suggestions for her. And then just when I thought the interaction finally came to an end, she asked as I went to leave “Where are you fishing this afternoon?” Which is just a bold assumption of my Sunday plans… I regret not inquiring what about me or what I was wearing, gave her the false impression I was on my way to catch some trout.

Gallon Wafer

Event: Team Bonding (Santa Cruz, California)

My coworker and I rented a truck to go pick up the company trailer. Enterprise had already closed for the night, so we placed the keys in the afterhours return box. Shortly after, we realized our personal keys were in the now locked rental car. My coworker walked to the restaurant across the street to grab some food while waiting for the locksmith. While in route he got catcalled… the pick-up line used was “I could eat you like a graham cracker”. To which he jokingly responded, “Yeah I get that a lot”. And she followed up with “I bet you do.” And they lived happily ever after. Just kidding, he sprinted into the restaurant and luckily, she didn’t follow.

21 Year Old Kids and Counting

EVENT: One Moto Show (Portland, OR)

Fast forward to driving home from Portland, I was caravanning with my friends from college back to California. My three guy friends and I grabbed breakfast that Sunday morning before hitting the road. As we sat down the waitress looked directly at me and said “Happy Mother’s Day.” It was a nice reminder for us to call our moms but something about the prolonged direct eye contact she had with the me, the only female at the table, made it feel like she was inferring that at least one, if not all the boys were mine. I hope I don’t look old enough to have sons that are over the age of 21.

Off The Windy Beaten Path

EVENT: Grinduro (Mt. Shasta, California)

My housemate, Ann, and I traveled to a bike race in Mt. Shasta last weekend. We got asked to pick up a package at FedEx on the way to the event. We clicked on the address sent to us and started to blindly follow the phone navigation. While en route many comments were made about the location and surrounding area…

·      “OMG so cute these houses all have horses out front”

·      “This FedEx is very remote”

·      “Seems odd that this is the closest FedEx to Mt. Shasta”

·      “What if the team is trying to get rid of us and they sent us here in hopes we would get stuck in the woods with no service?”

It wasn’t until I started the final turn onto a dirt road with a private access sign and a handwritten street sign on a piece of bark did we begin to consciously question the location. Turns out the street name was wrong, and it was 25 minutes the other direction. Ann pointed out that it took us WAY TOO LONG to question it.  But we found our way finally to the correct FedEx… unfortunately, they forgot to hold the packages at that location anyways. But on the bright side I think we have now seen the city of Redding, CA in its entirety, including the boonies.

Also on the drive up, mother nature was out to play. The wind on the highway was insane and essentially turned the sprinter van into a sail. Not to be dramatic but my arms were seriously tired from just holding the wheel at a solid 90 degree angle to counteract the wind for the entire 5 hour drive. We stopped at a Starbucks along the way and due to the wind, the store just had the drive thru open. I am not fully sure why wind would affect the inside of the store… but alas, I didn’t question it and just proceeded to walk through the drive through lane because the van didn’t pass the clearance height. Standing out there in the wind… car less… was worth it though because we got our order free of charge because they pitied us.  

Ann explained that she wanted to travel with me because apparently these types of scenarios don’t happen to other people on a regular basis, but to me it is just another day… nothing out of the ordinary... this is my life. So I guess my point is you have been warned. Join this sh*tshow at your own risk, unless you are my team, then I guess you have no choice hehe love you Bell Fam.

Next Stop Arkansas,

E